My Smooth World

Finale

2008-07-30T09:10:00.004-08:00

I have been thinking for some time about how I ought to end this blog, what an appropriate final post should look like in terms of overwrought, sentimental summation. I've had quite a few ideas. I thought, once, that I should drop my characteristic irony and say something sincere and uplifting about the transformative power of world travel. I thought it would be an appropriate way to cap my adventures to communicate to you, my readers, the genuine joy and excitement that thrilled through me each day of my encounters with the unsought and unexpected, how much I learned and how much more I recommend the same magical/spiritual/mystical experience to everyone (please drop whatever it is you're doing right now and GO). But does anyone really want to hear all that crap?

I thought I might even write an abstract poem on the subject:

O Earth, all serried natives,
and one word to combine all;

stitchings of nations,
over mountains and moraines,
lain carpeting, draped;

stirrings of the many-hued,
the long sung and the new upsprung,
into the dusty continents poured;

shifting borders, blending,
only porous definitions--

the lines that divide
are the lines that bleed.

Did you catch the sophisticated syntax and all the double-meanings?

I thought I might provide a sober, unsentimental assessment of what travel means to me and how I really feel about it and how it fits into, shapes, or alters overall life experience. I could say, along these lines, that it can, among many possible options, broaden your perspectives, sharpen your judgment, and stimulate senses you didn't know you had, but also confirm your deepest prejudices, confuse you, frustrate you, and make you run screaming home certain you'll never leave the safety of your IKEA futon again. I could cop out and say that I really don't know what it means or does or why I keep doing it. I can't actually recommend it to everyone. Some people don't seem to me cut out for it. Sure, if you have an expense account, you can do it in relative comfort, but, then, why bother do it at all? I think to travel, you need to work without a net as much as possible. If you aren't relying much on local means and local sources of kindness, then you're seeing the world but not engaging it. Sightseeing is fine, but don't tell me you're jealous of what I do if you yourself aren't prepared to sit on trains and buses, overcrowded and in stifling conditions, for 24-36 hours at a time, sometimes overnight, sometimes on particularly dangerous routes; if you aren't willing to talk to "regular" people, to love them and even more, if you aren't willing to despise regular people, because they are people, too, after all--just like you--and sometimes despicable, just as deserving of your hate as anyone else when it's justified; if you aren't willing to wait and wait for no apparent reason for no specified length of time for just about anything; if you aren't willing to go without most of the comforts of home; if you aren't willing to eat what there is to eat or cook for yourself night after night or sometimes live on biscuits or sometimes starve; if you aren't willing to deal with extreme emotional experiences like crushing loneliness and hysteria-inducing confusion; if you aren't willing to spend days or weeks puking and shitting out the taint from a befouled piece of fruit; if you aren't willing to endure relentless stares and personal questions about your religion, marital status, and income; if you aren't willing to pay too much because you're a foreigner but still remain capable of staring beggars in the face and saying, "No." If you aren't willing to do at least these things, don't tell me you're jealous of what I do, and don't tell me you're a traveler. There's no shame in just being a tourist or travel hobbiest. In fact, it may be better. I'm insane.

I thought I should offer some kind of pithy and glib recap of each country I visited:

Vietnam
Quite possibly the best food in the world; enjoyed the mountainous North more than the floodplain South. Commies.

Cambodia
"One dolla! One dolla!"

Thailand
Heaven and Hell rolled up into one country and stuffed with sticky rice.

Malaysia
Boring, but I was only there a few days, so my opinion is worthless.

Japan
Vague, but tea-licious.

South Korea
I loved it--the food, the people, the sights... just the energy of the place in general. Pretty girls.

Peru
Great trekking, fantastic landscape, interesting history and culture, spectacularly-situated ruins, and overall incredibly depressing.

Bolivia
Friendly, untouristed, compellingly remote, cheap, and very clearly governed and financed by drug dealers.

China
Worth visiting just for the food, but there are too many people and they all spit too much. Huge. Good train system. Commies.

Tibet
Most affecting place I've ever been. Very, very high.

Nepal
*The* backpacker nation; an interesting blend of different cultures, but the food gets tiring pretty quickly. Too many tourists, but the great mountain views make up for it.

Bangladesh
Doesn't really feel as crowded as it is. I had a great experience there with archaeologists. Dhaka is dirty.

India
Probably the most real place I've ever been. Almost every country I've been to since then has felt artificial somehow. I did not necessarily like it.

United Arab Emirates
God-awful. A grim vision of our future society, stripped of politics, a hulk of banal consumerism.

Oman
Like something out of The Arabian Nights. Pretty. Expensive.

Yemen
More amazing than pith has leave on which to expand. Ignore the travel warnings and visit a remarkable, unthought of land; has all the authenticity those annoying authenticity people are always looking for.

Armenia
Reminded me of New Jersey but with an ex-Soviet twist. Ararat!

Nagorno-Karabakh
Non-recognized. I turned 30 there.

Georgia
A slice of Europe dripping down from the Caucasus into the Middle East. More pretty girls.

Turkey
Incredibly nice people. More expensive than expected. Lots of ruins, which I love. But you have to pay to pee, which I don't love.

Greece
I liked it better this time, but I got to hang out with Greek people. Really very magical.

Albania
Not as dysfunctional as I was expecting. Is that a disappointment?

Montenegro
Whatever.

Croatia
Too expensive and too touristy. Sorry, fans, I didn't like it, but maybe it's just not for me, because everyone else does.

Slovenia
Inoffensive. Nice people. Home of Zizek.

Italy
Oh, the food...

France
Oh, the food...

Spain
Sedate enough by day for a pilgrim, wild enough at night for the unpenitent.

Portugal
Charming. Cheap(er). I want to go back for more.

United States of America
Dopey.

In the end, I couldn't decide what to do, how to end this yearish-long blog started on a whim, its content (and discontent) since more complexly evolved. So, as usual, I sat down, began typing, and typed until something came out that is at least long enough to qualify for the burdensome office of Last Post. To refer back to my first post, by way of closing things out for good, I have to say, though I didn't mean it seriously at the time, that my world, and the things I did in it, really did go down smooth (,baby), so I think I was prescient in choosing my otherwise arbitrary title.

Goodbye.

Gaudi was crazy

2008-07-29T07:18:00.002-08:00

Today is it. It's over. Finished. Finito. The last day of my one year trip around the world. I was a bit cranky this morning, because I had to wake up at 5:30 after a late night out and catch a 7:30 am, €100 (!) train to Barcelona, where, with no Couchsurfing hosts available, I was forced to check in to an overpriced Lonely Planet hostel (my room, when I arrived, was full of empty bottles of vodka and passed-out backpacker chicks). But then I realized: I did it! I made it! I didn't go broke, get seriously ill, or die! I have everything to be happy about and thankful for. As this thought occurred to me, I was strolling along the tourist street of Las Ramblas, where there were insane numbers of tourists doing the usual insane, touristy things. But I walked tall through the crowds of pretend-happy holiday makers and didn't even hate them that much today. With very little in the way of an itinerary, I figured I'd just cut a broad swath through this extremely lively city (alas that I have only one day!) and have a look, at least, at La Sagrada Familia.

And, my God, if I may say, that thing is impressive! This was the one time I regretted not having a digital camera, and it wasn't entirely the fact that Gaudi's crazy masterpiece is the most interesting (and ridiculous?) looking cathedral I've ever seen, but it's still under construction (other projects completed in the same span of time include the entirety of modern civilization), and I've never before seen a monument of such proportions being built--from the inside, too! There were cranes all over the outside (like Dubai) and scaffolding like cobwebs on the inside (like most of Italy on the outside). Plaster models for the strange sculptural details were in the nave, workmen doing their work thing all over the place. Cool stuff. The most impressive thing about La Sagrada Familia is definitely the sheer amount of expensive, tasteless crap people were purchasing in the gift shop. I never saw so many €100 notes being passed over the counter for such crap (little miniatures of the cathedral, coasters, €7 pencils, etc.). What a waste. We're in a recession? Anyway! So much for Barcelona.

I am sorry to be leaving The World, but I am not entirely unenthusiastic about going home and jump-starting my life again. I want to see all of you, too! Everybody! Get in touch with me! Let's make plans! Help me find a place to live, too!

If you've enjoyed reading my blog this year, please consider making a donation to The Steve Fund. It's easy! Just log in to Paypal, create an account, and email me any number of euros, yen, or VCUs with which you feel comfortable supporting me and my role as American Cultural Ambassador to Earth and Giver of Hugs to All. Cash in hand also welcome. Please, buy my love!

One more post, the wrap-up, to come. Thanks for reading, my friends.

Reàl Madrid, for real

2008-07-28T23:00:00.001-08:00

I like Madrid. It reminded me of New York: huge, noisy, crowded, and nobody speaks English. I had to squelch some of my overambitious plans for lack of time, so I didn't get a chance to see the Escorial palaces, where Philip II once acted CEO of the Spanish empire. I did, however, see the two top ticket museums: the Museo del Prado and the Museo Reina Sophia. I saw the latter first and the former last. I love visiting museums. They're usually so peaceful inside, little worlds cut off from the world; it's like going back to the womb. The prize of the Reina Sophia's modern art collection is Picasso's enormous "Guernica", which has its own room (like Seurat in Chicago) and TWO female attendants making sure no football teams try to steal it.

The Prado is one of the greatest museums in the world, I have oft been told, and has a quite large collection of the European masters, especially those rascally Spaniards Goya and Velasquez. Actually, I thought the Prado would be bigger, but it seems to be under restoration, and many of the exhibition rooms were closed. Still, it's no Met, and I'm sure that's an unfair comparison. Nevertheless, experiencing the face-off across adjoining galleries between Goya's "Family of Charles IV" and Velazquez's "Family of Philip IV" is something I won't soon forget (it's like crossing the beams in Ghostbusters: too much artistic power concentrated in once place). There were three other paintings I must mention because they seemed so strange to me. The first was a portrait of a man with a single breast, feeding an infant. I am sure there is an allegorical religious message contained therein, but I can't read artspeak Spanish, so the label, like the one-titted Renaissance guy, was beyond my comprehension. The other two paintings were versions of the same scene: a statue of the Virgen Mary coming to life in St. Bernard's presence and squirting milk into his mouth. According to the tag (this one I could just make out), this is a particularly beloved subject in Spain. Weirdos.

I did not much else in Madrid in the few days I was there. People-watching, mostly, and ambling up and down the wide boulevards. But there was one exciting development. Do you remember my Irish friend, Maeve, who appeared in sundry of my South America blog entries? Well, she made a special guest appearance in my life yesterday. She just finished her yacht duties in Newport, RI, and flew directly to Madrid to visit her friends here, where she used to live and work, here where I just happened to be, too. So we had the mostly lovely, drunken reunion. Luckily, her friends had to work the next day and she was jet-lagged, so I didn't end up staying out all night--normally a fine diversion once in awhile, but I had a train to catch to Barcelona in the early morning, and I wanted to at least be semi-conscious in the last city of my trip.

I can't believe it's almost over: two and a half years outside madhouse America. I hope my country won't reject me like a bad organ. I may have changed in ways I can't perceive, perhaps too much to fit back in again. The more frightening possibility, however, is that I haven't. In any event, I do miss my loved ones very much (my books, my Mac, my inflatable exercise ball, certain people) and hope to see you/them all soon.

Alhambra

2008-07-26T08:10:00.002-08:00

In Seville, I stayed with the lovely, Italian Anna, her trenchant husband, Juan, and a number of cats and children. On the way *to* Seville, I met Kevin, a Texan who knew not of the ways of couchsurfing and was actually *paying* for accommodation. Well, I set him straight awful quick, dragging him along to Anna's for what turned out to be a homecooked dinner and, lucky guy that he is, an invitation to join me in my Seville couchsurfing experience. Various combinations of Anna, Juan, Kevin, and I spent the next few days idly wandering around Seville, its day and its evening, at one point completely failing to see the cathedral we had set out to visit, because we spent about three hours talking in the cafe across the street. Que sera, sera?

Despite Anna's nearly successful attempts to persuade me to stay longer, I had to leave her and her insane kitten for Granada, where I was welcomed by my fellow New Jersey escapee, Adriana. Adriana is studying architecture at Berkeley but has been in Spain for a few years, I gathered, and also speaks, in addition to Spanish and English, Arabic, Italian, French, and German. Naturally, there was a party the night I arrived, but it was broken up by the police shortly after we arrived--just like in America! I spent the majority of the next day up at the Alhambra, that famous Moorish monument you've probably at least heard of (I know Kajori has). Since its artistic achievement is in a non-representational style, it would be difficult for me to describe the dream that it is to walk through such a luxuriant series of beautifully ornamented gardens, courtyards, plazas, and fortresses, ornamented beautifully by such tilework, such carving in wood, and such craftsmanship in stone: there is nothing in particular, no focus of attention, to concentrate your gaze (or camera on), just an infinite interweaving of geometric precision and calligraphic sublimity. The tourists were confused--with no statues, idols, portraits, or outstandingly distinguishing features to take photos of, they simply took photos of everything: the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the windows, and even the turban niches. I assume they will assemble them later in Photoshop, though I cannot fathom, for the life of me, why.

In the evening, there was not exactly another party but a dinner to which I was graciously invited after I missed my bus to Madrid. We had burritos prepared by American Amy, and I got to stretch my Spanish speaking "skills" to the limit by chatting with the non-English speaking locals who also attended. I think they liked me! Today, I took a morning bus to Madrid, where I am being entertained by the Italian resident-in-Madrid, Michele. He is extremely tall and even more extremely kind. Tonight, get ready for a surprise, there is a party. But after too many nights in a row staying up until 3 am, I have decided, instead of meeting another gang of no doubt wonderful and interesting people, to rest. And now, as well, I will also rest.

I can't think of a way to pun on "The Barber of Seville"

2008-07-23T11:11:00.003-08:00

Mostly because I got my mustache trimmed in Lisbon.

But I am back in Spain now, where the people don't nasalize their vowels, and thus elude my comprehension. Specifically, obviously, I am in Seville.

Ah, Seville! Mistress of Andalucia! The old Al-andalus of the Ummayids, the even older Vandal kingdom, that paradise of citrus and sunny days destined never to rule itself, so coveted it is, so indefensible. Seville, the launching-off point of Christopher Columbus and so many conquistador-explorers after him, the first port of call for the treasure fleets of old, where the wealth of the New World was debarked and transformed into grand cathedrals, stately estates, Goya paintings, and Spanish laziness (c.f. Montesquieu). Seville, the home of bullfighting and flamenco, ku klux klanesque Santa Semana processions, late night fiestas, and Lord knows what other decadent and delicious delights. Seville, an almost legendary city culled from a near-mythic land. Seville, where the lavish, Moorish Alcazar stands against the most beautiful cathedral in Spain (third one so far), within, the tomb of Christopher Columbus himself (second one). Seville, setting of "Carmen" and "The Marriage of Figaro." Seville, inspiration to generations of artists, composers, and poets.

Ah, Seville. Yes, I am in Seville.

The End of the World

2008-07-21T07:05:00.002-08:00

I met up with Gabor, my couchsurfing host, in the afternoon in Santiago, and, after loading up on wine and beer, we, along with the Japanese woman I met previously and bumped into again, went back to his apartment, which is right on the camino route. He lives with four other people: a Pole, another Hungarian, a German, and a Belgian. Strangely, they all spoke Spanish as their common language. Gabor had made a comment about pasta being a "simple food" so I decided to teach him a lesson. Because the Spaniards are barbarians, I couldn't find all the ingredients I needed (no tomato paste? no basil?), but I managed to scrounge up most of them at the supermarket to make my special tomato sauce (thanks, dad). Gabor and his roommates were puzzled that I was going to spend more than three hours cooking mere tomato sauce (a simple food!) and even laughed at me. When I finally served it to them, however, they were quickly converted. As a pedantic academic, nothing gives me more delight than demonstrating to people how wrong they are. Doing so with food, however, tends to go down better.

The next morning, I rose early to catch the bus to Fisterra, once the Roman "Finis Terrae", the end of Europe and therefore the end of the world. The Camino de Santiago continues to this pagan place past Santiago itself--another three days of walking--but I was too short of time to walk this part (few pilgrims do). The bus passed through numerous Galician seaside villages along the way, and they all seemed adorable enough. At Fisterra, I still had to walk a half hour to the lighthouse at the end of the world and even tempted fate by walking through sharp-needled brambles down the cliffside to the water's edge itself. I found a cave there and took a nap inside. Later, I went back to the village for beer and coffee before bussing it back to the city. So now I have done it: the Pacific to the Atlantic, more or less overland. In the evening, I bumped into Michael, an American I met working at one of the albergues along the way. He's actually an episcopal priest (or about to be) and a gay one, too, so I was thrilled to have the chance to chat with him again. Get this: his parish is in Honolulu, Hawaii. Boy am I visiting! We had delicious hot chocolate and then went to the best "mirador" for viewing the cathedral. Feast of St. James festivities had begun, but the best of that evening seemed to be a cover band that murdered Metallica. I couldn't take more after that. I never did get to kiss the statue of St. James inside the Santiago cathedral, but that's fine because I wasn't going to. My feelings toward the Catholic Church might have led me to spit on it, but I managed not to act out my rage this time.

The following day, I went to Lisbon, Portugal, where I am now. There, I met Neimar, my Brazilian couchsurfing host. His apartment is gorgeous! And new! And I get my own bathroom! With a bathtub! Believe me, these simple pleasures you all take for granted are quite a boon after what I've (happily) been through. The evening I arrived, it happened to be one of his fellow Lisbon couchsurfer's birthdays, so I was invited to go along with him to a couchsurfing party at his friend's apartment. Great people, these Portuguese! I was fed well, held a sparkler for the birthday girl, and got to try, as I so desired, the famous vinho verde. That was last night. Today, I've been sightseeing, as much as I can tolerate doing that anymore, around Lisbon, or, as the locals call it, Lisboa (where does English come up with its Anglicizations?). Naturally, it has a castle, a cathedral, and a bunch of churches. It also has neat little trams that climb the hills, and I took one of these up to a viewpoint first thing. Skipping ahead, I stumbled across a Japanese tea house. I couldn't resist having a nice lunch there with real powdered green tea. The waitress couldn't speak English, though, and I obviously don't do Portuguese yet (I seem to be able to read it, though), so she had to fetch her Japanese boss, and I ordered in Japanese. That was weird! I think one more interesting church is on the docket before I figure out what to do with my evening: bath, movie, or fado performance. Fado is a Portuguese style of music about which I know nothing, but I think it's like the blues. Lisbon is pretty, quaintly historical, and slightly dilapidated. I like it. All European cities were probably better when they were so cheap, rundown, and impoverished.

Arca O Pino to Santiago de Compostela

2008-07-18T19:00:00.002-08:00

Day 22
5:55 am - 9:45 am
20.3 km

It is accomplished! I woke extremely early to beat the crowd to the trail and also to ensure I'd get a bed at the Santiago albergue (which has 400, which costs €12, and which I am skipping anyway because I managed to arrange a couchsurf). The first 15 km were through empty woods and countryside--just lovely, though a bit hard to negotiate in the early morning dark. To my surprise, I kept passing people who left earlier. Some people I passed told me they left at 5 am. These people are insane! At around 8:30 am, I arrived at the last hill before the descent into Santiago. Here, there is a giant and terribly ugly monument erected to celebrate Pope John Paul II's visit to Santiago, whenever that was. There is also an 800-bed (!) pilgrim's albergue, which must be the mothership of hostels (and I thought that honor belonged to Sydney Central Backpackers). Soon after, and powered by Lindt chocolate since no cafes were open yet, I charged my way into the city, blatantly (like a New Yorker) ignoring all traffic signals as I click-clacked my way to the unbelievably gorgeous cathedral. I spent nearly 5 seconds marveling at this wonder in stone before directly my feet to the pilgrims' office. There, I finally received my "compostela", the official certificate of pilgrimage completion. Since I checked "not religious" under the "reason for walking" box on the sheet the girl gave me to fill out, I got the shitty secular version of the compostela. The religious one looks way cooler, with a nice border, Latin inscription, and everything. I asked to swap, but they told me once they issue a compostela, they are not allowed to change it. So I'll have to walk the whole thing again to get another one. Motherf**king church.

Maybe it's better this way. I walked the Camino de Santiago for myself, not for some higher, religious or spiritual cause. I don't really see why people make a big deal out of it, either. The Lonely Planet recommends five weeks, most people take around a month, and I did it in three weeks. There are hotels and hostels all along the way, and the path is well-marked and basically flat. It is not challenging, and yet people all the time every day complain about aches, pains, blisters, people snoring in the albergues, etc. This was a cakewalk, people, compared to the Andes, the Himalayas, and even parts of the USA. Nevertheless, I did have lots of time to myself, lots of time to consider those big questions that, however trite, are still relevant to our sense of ourselves and where we belong in the world. Time and time again, I kept returning to one question, however, that I often contemplated without discovering a satisfactory answer. It is a question one must pose to the universe, perhaps, and only from the universe might it be possible to receive a reply. Barring that, maybe the collective wisdom of you, my readers, can produce an answer to this greatest of mysteries with which I have ever struggled: why do cyclists wear such ridiculous outfits?

Melide to Arca O Pino

2008-07-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Day 21
6:55 am - 3:30 pm
32.4 km

With nothing to rush me through this ostensibly easy day, I "slept in" and didn't hit the road until nearly 7 am. I seem to have alternating good and bad days, because my pack didn't sit quite so well on my back this day as it did the day before. Nevertheless, I made respectable time and thoroughly enjoyed a cloudy day walking along a shaded, mostly soft dirt path. When I arrived at the 120 bed albergue, I was shown to an upper bunk bed. When I asked for a lower one, the chica told me the upper option was the LAST BED IN THE ALBERGUE! To repeat, I GOT THE LAST AVAILABLE BED. Good thing I rushed up the hill coming into town past those other poor suckers. No, my friends, this was not a time to gloat. I knew the travel gods had smiled upon me once again and wondered what I could offer them in return. In the evening, I failed to prevent myself from drinking yet more beer and then nearly busted a gasket when I randomly discovered that Nine Inch Nails has been churning out album after album in the last 12 months, which means tour, which meant I was lucky I could still buy a ticket to the New Jersey show in the crap section last night. I only got two this time. For both lunch and dinner, I enjoyed my final, self-prepared tomato, avocado, and canned fish sandwiches.

Portomarin to Melide

2008-07-16T19:00:00.001-08:00

Day 20
6:30 am - 3:00 pm
39.6 km

Ten hours of sleep works wonders, doesn't it? I woke early and arrived at my destination nice and early. Quite a few people in Portomarin left even earlier than I did: like, around 5 am! It was still dark! What were these insane people thinking? Most of them, I assume, were new pilgrims. Since you only have to walk the last hundred kilometers to get the official "compostella" at the end, which certifies your completion of the Camino de Santiago (and assures your entrance to Paradise, I assume), many pilgrims (too many, in my opinion) just do that bit. I even heard that Spanish people get some kind of special dispensation from the government if they do it, or a salary rise or something. So the trail's getting busier as are the albergues. In a few weeks, it could be hard to find a bed. Luckily, I will be done tomorrow afternoon or, more likely, the following morning. The early risers must think they're going to beat the heat. I left at 6:30, couldn't see a thing for the first hour, and it was still quite hot by midmorning. But today, I was on fire. I could tell right away (see yesterday) it was going to be a good day, because when I put on my pack, it felt like I was wearing nothing. Isn't that funny how one day it feels heavy and the next day it doesn't? I took advantage of my good feeling by blitzing past everyone who left with the moon and doing 12 km before 8:30 am, at which point--the highest point before the camino descends to Santiago--I had my morning cafe con leche. Ahhh... From there, the trail is mostly asphalt (love it) and mostly shaded (love it more) until it gets to Melide. I was going to go on past Melide to ensure I arrive in Santiago tomorrow, but then I sat down in one of this city's famous "pulperias" or, and you might have to be me to get excited by this,

RESTAURANTS SPECIALIZING IN OCTOPUS.

I recall, when I was a child, my father used to bring me to the gourmet food section of the local supermarket and point out the canned octopus, which I then thought so disgusting. Now, the jaws of life couldn't pry me away from

RESTAURANTS SPECIALIZING IN OCTOPUS.

For only €8, I got a large basket of bread and a larger platter of octopus chunks, sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with some kind of red pepper powder (pulveria?). I learned from the octopus that I'm doing the camino, presumably, to enjoy it--like I enjoyed eating at the pulperia. So intead of forcing another 14 km out of my tired feet and strained shoulders, I put down my backpack in Melide for the night and even met a Japanese woman for a small practice-my-Japanese bonus. Tomorrow, I will probably do another short walk and arrive at Santiago in the late morning on Friday. I have to get two stamps a day in my pilgrim passport now, in order to prove I've walked the last hundred kilometers (and not, for instance, ridden a donkey), stipulated as necessary by, I don't know, the Pope or Jesus or someone. Now, it's time for my cerveza con limòn. I forced myself to wait until the evening, so I wouldn't fall asleep before updating you, my dear readers, on my timely progress. This time, I'm going to have a "grande".

Samos to Portomarin

2008-07-15T19:00:00.002-08:00

Day 19
7:05 am - 4:30 pm
34 km

Did I mention that I've seen the sunrise every day for the last three weeks? Well, I have, and it's been very special. I never see the sunset, though. It never seems to happen in Spain. I go to bed at 9:00 or 10:00 pm, and it's still way up there, blaring away (does the sun "blare"? someone check dictionary.com). Anyway, I did not enjoy this day. I can tell early on whether the day is going to be good to me, hikingwise. When I woke up today and put on my backpack, it felt heavy. Hmm.. bad sign. I then had to spend most of the day walking long distances between few towns on hard-surfaced, winding country roads. And, it got hot early and got hotter later. So, I didn't make much progress, but I considered this a rest day. I arrived later than usual at Portomarin, which is actually a beautiful, hilltop/riverside town I recommend to anyone looking for a quaint, quiet place for a holiday. Despite my hardships, I was amazed again by how beer and pizza make them all go away. I was also amazed by the albergue's kitchen. It was spacious, well-equipped with two sinks and a complete range, and possessed exactly one pot. I guess I bought that quinoa in Leòn for nothing. Sigh.

Ruitelàn to Samos

2008-07-14T19:00:00.001-08:00

Day 18
7:15 am - 5:00 pm
39.9 km

Another great day with mountains! That's a sentence fragment, Japanese readers, and should not be used for instructional purposes. I just can't help being excited by mountains. There have been so few on this pilgrimage. At the top of today's, I entered the province of Galicia at the town of O Cebreiro. I'd been wanting to visit O Cebreiro for some time, because I think it has a cool name. In Gallego, 'o' and 'a' are used instead of "el" and "la" as articles. This may seem like a minor point to you, but the speakers of local dialects in Spain take them quite seriously. I gather this from all the signs containing "el" that are spray-painted over with "o", for example, and vice-versa. O Cebreiro is particularly cool to me, because when you get there and see the verdant, rolling hills of Galicia from one of its highest points, you too have to say "Ohhh Cebreiro!" Galicia is named for its Celtic (or Gallic, or Gaelic, or Gaulic) indigenes, who once seemed to live everywhere from Scotland and Ireland to France (aka Gaul), Spain, and even Turkey (Galatia). Now, they all own shops that sell "celtic design" souvenirs, which have nothing whatsoever to do with basketball. I enjoyed a variety of my favorite pleasures today, as well. Galicia reminds a bit of Nepal. Like the trails there, the camino in Galicia passes through mostly tiny villages where the locals have set up little cafes and restaurants to entice weary walkers. Also, there's stinky cowshit everywhere.

After hiking, as it were, over the mountains and through the woods (raspberries for sale en route! I didn't have a whole euro for the box, so the old, toothless lady gave it to me for 30 cents! score!), I arrived at the Greek-sounding monastery of Samos, a giant establishment in the middle of nowhere, Galicia. The hospitalero told me I still had time to visit the monastery's interior and then, afterward, listen to the monks sing. Instead, I went to the bar, got half-drunk as usual on cerveza con limòn; went to the restaurant to eat delicious Galician seafood and get the rest of the way drunk from the free wine; went to the supermercado to buy myself an ice cream and, a new guilty pleasure, an ice-cold can of orange Fanta. And then went to bed. Very happy and quite unconcerned that I missed the singing and whatnot. That's another sentence fragment.

Ponferrada to Ruitelàn

2008-07-13T08:59:00.003-08:00

Day 17
7:05 am - 5:30 pm
44.8 km

The oatmeal made me late again, but I still managed to cover more ground than necessary again. I started off thinking I would take it easy today, but that plan always gets replaced with the "if I just push myself a little more, I can get to the next town" plan. So here I am, one town farther on than I really need to be before I start the "difficult" climb tomorrow up to Galicia and the last stage of the pilgrimage. Galicia is so far away from the rest of Spain (New York to Pennsyltucky in American distance), they have their own language, Gallego, which is pronounced, believe the awful truth or not, "ya-YAY-yo." Actually, it might be difficult getting up there. For most of today, I had a horrible pain in that muscle above the ankle that must be used for going down mountains (see yesterday), and I fear (get ready for future tense usage, grammar mavens) it will not have gone away by tomorrow morning. In which case, I really *will* take it easy. I stopped at a makeshift cafe today run by an old Spanish guy in his garden. He asked me whether I liked Bush (I said "¡No!") and then proceeded to complain about the pain in his knees. I sympathized in broken Spanish. I decided to push on to this town because the refugio here is called "Refugio Potala" and it made me nostalgiac for Tibet. In my imagination, I thought it would be a beautiful place done up in Tibetan style with a gourmet meal for supper (since it's a privado). In reality, it's hum-drum with one bathroom, a dormitory in the attic, and pasta for dinner (for €6). They do have free internet and donativo massages, though, so it's not a total disappointment. But the last town! It had an open store! And today is Sunday!

Astorga to Ponferrada

2008-07-12T19:00:00.002-08:00

Day 16
7:00 am - 6:15 pm
53.7 km

Due to my pasta breakfast, I got an uncharacteristically late start this day but still managed the ridiculous and painful feat of walking over 33 miles today. Not much compared to past occasions, but with my backpack, this was difficult. Since, once again, very little happened (I saw lots of beautiful scenery, etc.), I want to point out if I haven't already, and if I have I want to reinforce, that every year only about 350 American pilgrims set out on the Camino de Santiago. That's pathetic! "But America is so far away from Europe. It's easy for the Germans to go there." Nice try! Even more Canadians do it than Americans, and there are ten times more of us! I know you'd all love to wake up every day at 5:30 am for 30+ days in a row and walk all day until your blisters outnumber your toes in the blazing Spanish summer. But you don't have long enough vacations, right? That's really too bad. I don't know what you should do, in that case. Start fighting to change the system or something. Ponferrada is named for a famous (medieval?) bridge made out of metal that crosses the adjacent river. I couldn't find it. I soaked my feet and had oatmeal for breakfast.

After re-reading this post, I realized that it's all lies. This day was, in fact, quite interesting because I finally passed over some topography. I was cautioned to sleep at the bottom of this first of two ranges of mountains before ascending, because they are "difficult", but I don't listen to such nonsense. Instead, I walked the 22 km from Astorga to the town at the bottom, marveled at how the Spanish pilgrims can drink beer in the morning before a full day of hiking, and then up, up, up I went. I think spring came later in the mountains this year, as you might expect, because there were still little mountain flowers in bloom everywhere. The visibility was excellent, too, unlike the first day, so I could see a great distance among the high, rolling hills (not many actual peaks). I was so excited to be crossing mountains, I think I went faster than usual, though going down is always rough. Still, I managed to walk my greatest distance so far and *with* a mountain obstacle in the way. So I am not impressed with that old French guy's assessment of "difficult" hiking conditions (back in St. Jean... did I mention him? I can't remember anything!). Yes, this was a great day, a great day indeed! I even had my customary beer with lemon before staggering into the albergue.

Leòn to Astorga

2008-07-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

Day 15
6:20 am - 5:30 pm
48.9 km

The cathedral was awesome. The stained glass windows dazzled me with color in the waning afternoon light; the nave rose to, what can I say, cathedralesque heights above me; the exterior sculpture work on this Gothic masterpiece was a wonder to behold; and, most importantly, it was free.

The long and not-so-winding road today took me straight across the paraño to Astorga, another city with a spectacular cathedral (not free). The paraño, like the meseta, is flat and boring. The only difference is that one is called the meseta and the other is called the paraño (drum riff). In the morning, I walked the first 8 km or so with an Irish physicist lady. Somewhere among the next 30 km, I passed my Norwegian friend, who now has a name: Barbro (sounds like Barbra, as in Streisand). Did I mention her before? I'm not checking. There was also a really cool bridge in one of the towns (translates into English as "little town with really cool bridge" OK that's a joke, but the real name is "Hospital de some river" which is boring and not as cool as my name). After that town, I missed the ruta alternativa and ended up walking alongside a major highway forever. After forever was over, I ascended into Astorga, which I liked right away--small and managable; clean and quiet; many historic buildings (including a Gaudi); and pastry shops everywhere. I really hit up the pastry shops, I tell you. I made way too much pasta that evening for dinner and wound up having it again the next day for breakfast. It was good! Pasta power!

Reliegos to Leòn

2008-07-10T03:39:00.001-08:00

Day 14
6:45 am - 12:00 pm
26 km

Today, I woke up early and bullrushed my way to Leòn. En route, I saw much graffito-propaganda calling for an independent Leòn (Leòn sin Castilla, etc.). Since their unification a thousand years ago, I guess they've finally decided that things aren't working out. Speaking of bulls, I saw the famous running of them on the television at the first bar I stopped at. I'm glad I didn't participate, because quite a few people were injured, many more than I expected actually, not so much gored but trampling looks pretty bad to me, too. So maybe I'll give that one a miss. Now I'm in Leòn. I just changed all my travelers checks, and I'm using some of my precious remaining euros to write this post. The Internet Extortion Facility (IEF) I'm at even charges €2 extra to use Skype. Well, f*ck that and f*ck them. I'm going to the cathedral.

Terradillos de Los Templarios to Reliegos

2008-07-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

Day 13
6:50 am - 4:00 pm
38.4 km

I started off this day keen to make up for the previous day's lethargy. So I booked it across the meseta at 7.5 km/hour until my toes bubbled up with blisters, and I had to slow down, finally collapsing 6 km short of my intended goal in the cool embrace of two cervezas con limòn. I had a 13 km stretch of flat, boring countryside to traverse today, this time alone, and I think I went slightly insane. First I got annoyed and then downright angry with the trail, which refused to end, but that didn't seem to make it any shorter. I sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" to myself over and over again, adding my own variations. The heat and lack of shade probably added to my delerium. At least I'm now beyond the halfway point of my pilgrimage and still ready to tackle the last eight days or so, despite my numerous pains. I will be making these posts even shorter in the future, I think, because I still can't get any money out of these Spanish ATMs and I now have about €317 left to my name, which is what 500VCU buys right now.

Carrion de los Condes to Terradillos de Los Templarios

2008-07-08T10:32:00.001-08:00

Day 12
7:30 am - 5:30 pm
26.2 km

Seriously, some of these Spanish town names are unecessarily long, especially when they contain more letters than the town contains inhabitants. Anyway, today's departure/arrival times and distance traversed don't really count because I spent another day walking with the Hungarians, and they walk sloooooow. So, I will be off again on my own tomorrow so that I can reach Lèon the day after tomorrow. The "highlight" of today's journey was the 17 km, completely straight, completely flat and featureless stretch of dirt road between Carrion de los Condes and the next village. The runner-up is the free Internet I discovered at my albergue for the evening, with which I am writing this post, probably sooner than expected.

Itero de la Vega to Carrion de los Condes

2008-07-07T11:00:00.002-08:00

Day 11
6:55 am - N/A
33.3 km

That N/A above is because I caught up with the Hungarians (saw the Swiss woman, too) and walked--very slowly--with them. Since nothing else eventful happened or is likely to happen while I am on the meseta, I will take this opportunity to say that what makes the Camino de Santiago interesting is the route it takes through Spain. It still follows, more or less, the original track, which itself is so old, you often find yourself walking on Roman roads or over medieval bridges. It passes through innumerable towns ranging in size from large cities like Pamplona and Burgos to tiny hamlets with nothing but a 500-year old church and a bar. Many of the towns (and all of them have a rustic, decayed charm) owe their existence to the traffic along the Camino. That is, they began as support centers for the medieval pilgrims, continued in that capacity until the pilgrimage almost died out, and are now experiencing a rebirth with pilgrims walking the old road once again. It's an interesting phenomenon, historically and economically speaking. I even met a Japanese university student in Logroño who's writing her thesis about it. This evening, I am staying at an albergue attached to a church. While I was typing this post, the other pilgrims stood in a circle (in the same room) and sung some kind of hymn in Spanish. Now they are eating a communal meal, after which they will each have an opportunity to offer thanks in front of the group. I must get out of here lest I am, by chance, called on to do the same.

Tardajos to Itero de la Vega

2008-07-06T19:00:00.002-08:00

Day 10
6:30 am - 4:00 pm
41.2 km

I thought it best to cover as much ground as possible today to make up for the time lost during the averted crisis. To that end, I once again hauled ass across the increasingly desolate landscape. This part of Spain is known as the meseta, and it really is as flat and featureless as a table. There is nothing else to say! I arrived at my destination albergue in the afternoon and cooked enough pasta to feed six people. Instead, it fed just me today and the following evening.

Burgos to Tardajos

2008-07-05T19:00:00.001-08:00

Day 9
4:20 pm - 6:20 pm
9.8 km

The night before, I put my worries aside so I could celebrate Independence Day properly. This meant handing out cheap ice creams to everyone at the albergue (I still had a credit card!) and getting drunk on cheap wine with a bunch of Hungarian women, a Swiss woman who actually started her pilgrimage in Switzerland, and a Spanish guy who's been doing 50+ km a day. In the morning, I started making the rounds in Burgos. I had to find a place to change my cash or traveler's checks. Burgos is, historically, an important city. It was once the center of Spanish transhumance (I like you all well enough not to explain what that is--it involves sheep), and it has an important and beautfiful cathedral that contains the tomb of El Cid the Moor-chaser. I didn't have time to enjoy any of this history, however, because I was broke and starting to feel depressed. I went to every bank, every ATM, and every 4-star hotel in the city. The banks were all closed (for a fiesta, for the weekend, for the summer, whatever); the ATMs all turned me down; none of the hotels could change money (first time ever!). But Burgos is a tourist city, so I expected there must be a few Bureau de Cambio. Nope! I visited a tourist information office, and despite the nice man's extensive efforts to help me, there was nothing he could do. Finally, I went back to the albergue to get my backpack, hoping I could stay at the other albergue (the one with 18 beds that's always full). On the way, I decided to give the shops near the cathedral one last shot. I picked a camera store, which I thought was my best bet, and the lady there, my savior, not only changed 200VCU for me--worth an astonishing €127--she gave me a decent rate with no commission. ¡Que bueno! I rushed over to the Internet cafe and Skyped my bank. The problem, the nice lady explained, was that all transactions from Spain and several other countries (including, curiously, Canada) are being blocked by my bank due to problems with fraud. She told me she would have my card unblocked by Monday. I asked about Portugal. "Isn't Portugal part of Spain?" she replied, as though *I* were an idiot. I decided not to ask about Andorra. With the day waning, I figured I still had enough time and spirit left in me to cover at least the roughly 10 km to the next albergue, which, to my delight, turned out to be free (well, donation requested, but close enough). Things were starting to go my way again... as they always seem to do, my friends.

Villafranca Montes de Oca to Burgos

2008-07-04T19:00:00.002-08:00

Day 8
6:50 am - 4:30 pm
39.6 km

After making myself some omelette sandwiches with the last of my food supply (and thus waking the woman who, for some reason, was sleeping in the kitchen), I hauled ass to Burgos, the next town, I was informed, that would have an ATM. Spain, in many ways, is a backward country. But more on that in a minute. Getting to Burgos was a drag. The first half of the journey was on a dirt road that was so rocky, I couldn't make rapid progress without destroying my feet, which I did. The second half was along a major artery leading into Burgos (a large city). You know those long suburban, strip-malled second-tier highways that never end (think Route 46, New Jersey friends)? It was like that. Not so pleasant! Finally, I reached the Burgos city limits... and had to keep going. On and on. Because. The albergue. Was. On. The other. Side. Of. The. City. "My God," I thought, "I am not amused with you today." It's not the traffic so much that bothers me; it's the constant walking on hard surfaces. 20 km of impacts adds up. En route, I tried every ATM. No luck. When I finally reached the albergue, I was lucky it only cost €3, which is about what I had left (I borrowed 5 cents from the manager so I could spend the rest on a coffee). At one point, I realized it was Friday and that nothing was likely to be open for the weekend and I wouldn't be able to spend another night at the albergue. With no money, no way of changing money, and no way of getting money, I was beginning to feel like a cheerleader the morning after prom.

Azofra to Villafranca Montes de Oca

2008-07-03T19:00:00.002-08:00

Day 7
6:50 am - 6:00 pm
50.1 km

Note: I have redated all the posts for the Camino so the post date corresponds with the events recorded for that day. On this day, the one week mark, I regained my stride and walked a nearly suicidal 50 kilometers. I think I was in a meditative state of delerium most of the time, so I don't recall, for example, "things" happening. Spain for me is like a place out of a dream. It's so lazy, the towns are so quiet, the countryside is so peaceful, I almost don't know where I am or feel that I'm anywhere. It was on this day, however, that I realized my ATM card wasn't working. Luckily, a nice Dutchman with a pony loaned me his mobile phone at the albergue in Villafranca. Unluckily, I could not get in touch with my bank. Luckily, I still had a grand total of €4 in my pocket to see me through to Burgos.

Logroño to Azofra

2008-07-02T10:57:00.005-08:00

Day 6
6:15 am - 1:55 pm
34.8 km

After ditching the extra baggage, and then even more in Logroño (why was I carrying cooking oil? Am I really that much of an idiot?), I felt renewed vigor. With that vigor, I vigorously vigored my way through the next two towns of Navarrete and Nàjera, with 13-16 km intervals in between. The lower temperature today really helped. It's been around 37 degrees C (99 F) every day, but today it was cloudy and cool: a gift from (the travel) God(s). I got back up to a 6 km/hour average walking speed, which gratified me, and reached Azofra, a little country town, early enough to enjoy a long convalesence at the albergue. There, I encountered once again my greatest enemy: Guitar Dude. This one was actually *hand-carrying* his tool across the country (that is, he wasn't wearing it across his back like most of the at least partially-sane guitar dudes I've seen before). So he's either exceptionally dedicated to entertaining others and being the center of attention (American, naturally), or he's a complete f*cking idiot. Given my feelings about Guitar Dude, you likely know where *I* stand, my friends. I had considered going on to Santo Domingo, a mere 15 km down the road, but once again, uncharacteristically, wisdom prevailed! I even treated myself to a pilgrim's dinner at the local restaurant. Funnily enough, the restaurant had wine (which, it being La Rioja, I wanted to sample), but no water.

I'm pretty sure my head has been crammed with many more interesting things to say, but given the present constraints I am under, those percolations will have to wait until another time to be filtered through their blogular outlet.

Los Arcos to Logroño

2008-07-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Day 5
6:30 am - 2:00 pm
28 km

I decided to take it easy this day, because I'd been pushing myself too much. My blisters were just starting to graduate into callouses, and it seemed like not such a bad idea to go easy on them before they started their new lives. Also, the next town from Logroño was another 13 km further along--a bit much for the end of the day. Early in my journey there, I was in a bad mood. The previous evening, I'd read an article in The Nation about the catastrophic consequences of environmental degradation in the 21st century. When I arrived at the first town of the day, some guy was standing in front of me with a camera aimed at my face. He snapped away and then handed me a slip of paper with his web address. You can surely see the annoyance inscribed upon my brow.

At the next next town, I had my cafe con leche, though, and then all was right in the world. After another giant 16 km leap, I was in Viana. There, I came across a miraculous sight such as appears to humanity but once in a great long while, truly an epoch-defining event that remains in one's memory, indelibly, forever: an open post office in Spain. I took this opportunity to unload about 3.5 kg worth of crap and mail it to myself in Santiago de Compestela, where it will be scrapped on July 23 or 24. So once again, I am on a deadline. But I was also excited to discover that Viana, Spain is the final resting place of Cesar Borgia! You may not have heard of him, but he was one of Renaissance Italy's most notorious and ruthless condottieri. His father was a Pope (wait, how can a Pope have children...?), and he himself was a bishop at the age of 15 (of Pamplona!) and a cardinal at 18. By the age of 31, when he died, he'd received numerous other titles, became the first person in history to resign the cardinalship, and nearly conquered Italy before his Pope-father died, and he was exiled to Spain. To top things off, he was the primary inspiration of Machiavelli's "The Prince", in which all princes are exhorted to behave like the murderous, coercive, but pragmatic Borgia. No, wait, even better: his image became the model in his lifetime for numerous portraits of JESUS CHRIST! And it's been speculated that, on this bases, all subsequent portrayals of the SON OF GOD have been based on it. So, I don't feel quite so bad that I haven't achieved as much in my own life of similar length. Who could compete with all that? At the cathedral where he's buried, I got my credential stamped. How lowly we Italians have come.

In the early afternoon, I arrived in the provincial city of Logroño, my first stop in the famous wine-producing region of La Rioja. I soaked my feet.

Cirauqui to Los Arcos

2008-06-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

Day 4
6:25 am - 4:25 pm
36.3 km

I fell back into my stride on this day. Leaving Cirauqui early, I made it to the next town, Lorca, where I had originally planned to stay, at a reasonable enough hour to enjoy a cafe con leche with my (self-prepared) breakfast. The going on this day was easy in that it was mostly flat, but difficult in that it was extremely hot and a little bit dull. This is not an overpopulated country, clearly, because the towns are small, begin and end abruptly, and are few and far between. The countryside is beautiful and all, but try walking through it for hours and hours, days and days. As I said about Mt. Ventoux, it is well, perhaps, that such things are generally appreciated from a distance. That's not to say I don't like what I'm doing! I love walking, and I am enjoying this walk immensely. But this wouldn't be much of a blog if I didn't squeeze a few barbs into even the most innocuous of posts. For example, why the f*ck don't these people speak English??

From the second to last town of the day to the last, Los Arcos, it was flat, flat, flat and boring. The camino cut a more or less straight path through endless fields with no interesting features on the landscape. When Los Arcos finally appeared, after 12 km of this, I felt it was a miracle. The very name had a mythic quality to me, like some far away and slightly mysterious Mexican town, and I was eager to reach this sanctuary, a haven safely removed from the previous days' pilgrims, who had mostly decided to stay the night in the last town. When I arrived at the local albergue, surprisingly run by Austrians, I was even more surprised to meet a Japanese woman manning (womanning?) the desk. She spoke some Spanish but was quite pleased to be able to speak Japanese for a change, which I was more than happy to do myself, since my Japanese is still better than my Spanish. She put me in a giant dorm room that was completely empty except for me. I slept like a kitten.

¡Buen Camino!

2008-06-30T08:20:00.002-08:00

The Internet in these pilgrim albergues costs €1 for 20 minutes, which means I do not have time/money to write a proper update of my last four days of walking. I ought to reach a city in the next day or so, and I am hoping that cheaper netsurfing is available there. So for now: I am alive, I am walking the camino, I am in a lot of pain, as usual, and I am loving it (more the walking than the pain, but you know how much I like pain, too). I also seem to have recovered my ability to speak Spanish, which is gratifying, though the desk girl at the albergue I'm staying at tonight turned out to be Japanese...

Pamplona to Cirauqui

2008-06-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

Day 3
6:55 am - 2:00 pm
31 km

I got a late start today and made slow progress due to the steadily expanding and increasingly worrisome size of my blisters. Every night, I drain them with a needle, but they keep coming back stronger than ever the next day, like hair that grows in fuller and darker after you shave it off. Do blisters follow the same principle? On this particular day, I had greater ambitions than I could pull off. I had hoped to cover 35-40 km/day, but I was exhausted by the time I reached the little hilltop hamlet of Cirauqui, so I decided to chuck it in. Plus, it was extremely hot that day, and, though I like the heat, I am not immune to its debilitating effects. I know I'm not mentioning anything terribly interesting as far as what happened to me along the way, but this is largely because, after a year of meeting people and trekking with people and in every way being constantly exposed to different people with different languages and cultures, all asking me over and over where I come from, etc., I have made it a point to isolate myself on the Camino de Santiago and treat it as a proper, personal, pilgrimage, a quiet time at the end of my trip before I once again have to deal with the little, awful difficulties of regular life. Thus, I am trying to do it alone and speak to as few people as possible. I know most of my fellow pilgrims regard this month of walking as a spiritual, life-alterting deviation from their boring and pointless lives back in whiteland, but, obviously, it's pretty run of the mill for me. So I prefer to leave them among themselves to be amazed with how interesting other affluent Europeans are. In the evening, I stayed at nice, private albergue, the only one available. These pilgrim albergues typically cost anywhere from nothing to €9, with this one being at the top end. Martin, a nice Swede who is one of the few people I have been talking to, showed up in the evening, and that was fine. We keep running into each other. He went out, though, to watch the final football match. In Basque country, apparently, the Spanish soccer team is not a hot item, but they did find a place to watch it, and, I later learned, Spain won. Hooray.

Roncesvalles to Pamplona

2008-06-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

Day 2
6:15 am - 4:15 pm
42.8 km

This day almost killed me, because my backpack, I soon realized, was way too heavy for cross-country trekking. Still, I managed to plunge my way down into the heart of the Basque country, where I basked in the glory of reaching bull-running central in a mere 10 hours. My feet grew enough blisters to cripple an entire race of marathon runners, but I still managed to hobble over to the supermercado to buy cooking supplies. I made six giant burritos out of avocado, olives, mushrooms, eggs, cheese, fish, and squid. Everyone in Pamplona seemed to be drunk or getting drunk that night, and I later learned that the big Spain vs. Germany European football championship was coming up. Otherwise, like every other town and city I've come across in this country, it was completely dead everywhere else at all other times. This is strange to me. Also, nothing is ever open. Also, nobody speaks English. In a way, Spain reminds me of South America.

St. Jean Pied du Port to Roncesvalles

2008-06-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

I have no choice but to use the expensive Internet terminal, but I don't have unlimited 1 euro coins, so I am going to try and cover the last six days of walking with brief blurbs. Seriously, I will be brief this time!

Addendum: There are actually many routes to Santiago. I will be taking the Camino Frances, or French Road, which is the most popular and best marked. The total distance from St. Jean to Santiago is variously given, but 819 km (509 miles) seems to be the most accurate. The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compestela, where St. James is allegedly buried, was the third most important pilgrimage in medieval times, after Rome (been there) and Jerusalem (done that).

Day 1
6:30 am - 12:15 pm
27 km

In St. Jean, I received my "pilgrim credential" which is sort of like a passport but more useful because it entitles me to cheap meals and cheaper (or free) beds at all the pilgrim hostels along the Camino de Santiago, whereas a regular passport merely entitles me the right to enter a country, with no accompanying discounts. I am obliged to get my credential stamped at each albergue or hostel I stay at, but I can also get optional stamps wherever I like along the way. Of course, I love this concept, and I've basically stopped everywhere I possibly could to get my pilgrim passport stamped. The first day of walking was typical for me, because, although it's supposedly the most "difficult" (not exactly Himalayas difficult, I can attest), it is also supposed to be one of the most spectacular, since it takes you up and over the Pyrenees before descending down into Spain. The typical part is that it rained the whole day, so there were no views, and I got completely soaked. In Roncesvalles, famous as the setting for the Song of Roland--the story of Charlemagne's best knight, who took on more Moors than he could handle--I spent the night in a pilgrim's "hospital" that's been serving in the capacity for about 800 years. Basically, it's a giant medieval hall with about 200 bunk beds. Imagine the echoes of the snoring in such a chamber! I would have to imagine it too, because I carry earplugs.

St. Jean Pied du Port

2008-06-26T22:22:00.000-08:00

I am in St. Jean Pied du Port. Tomorrow I will (are you listening, Zach?) walk into Spain. I don't know about Internet access after tonight. Probably intermittent.

Here's a sample of what Google's planning for its new mobile phone OS:

"A GPS-enhanced social networking app that lets you map and track your friends in real time while using the IM function to plan impromptu meet-ups on the go."

Doesn't that sound great?!

Kill everyone. Let God sort them out.

2008-06-26T07:00:00.005-08:00

The same day that I returned, recovered, from Mt. Ventoux, I left Avignon for Nimes. I had hoped to see Arles, as well, but given the time I had, I decided that my secret love for the Robert DiNiro movie "Ronin" was not a good enough reason to rush through my last day in Provence. Anyway, the big draw in Arles is a Roman amphitheatre, and Nimes has one, too--in fact, the best preserved one in the world. Score for me! Little did I know, but the day before they played in Milan, Radiohead performed in the f*cking Roman arena in Nimes! Maybe it's a good thing I didn't see them there, because I might have had an ultimate bliss-out heart attack. Isn't it cool that they still use these 2000 year old performance spaces, though?

I arrived in Nimes full of a renewed determination to enjoy life, having just had it saved. Much to my horror, however, the train station didn't have a left luggage room. "Why?!" I screamed in my heart, before heading out, with backpack, to see what sense I could make of the world. Walking along the main drag, I soon passed a hotel. Ah, I'll simply ask... "We cannot store luggage for non-guests" the sign read. So, I was not the only one who had faced this problem, and I was also facing an unfriendly city. The next hotel I passed was a posh Novotel. Figuring my chances were slim, I confidently strolled up to the desk and begged the sweet-looking young woman there to have mercy on me. For security reasons, she informed me, they were not able to store bags for non-guests. I asked why Nimes, unlike every other city I'd ever been to, was at Defcon 2. I asked if I looked dangerous. I asked if it was the beard. Finally, she relented, this proving to me once again that I am charming enough to get anything I want (but remembering the lesson of the previous day, it did not make me cocky).

I then went off and walked around and around the amphitheater, blithely (that's right, blithely) ignoring the "passage interdit" signs, walking on the top rim and through all the different levels of passages. I am still a kid when it comes to ruins, especially Roman ruins. I met my Canadian female counterpart when I boarded the bus to another ruin, the also Roman aqueduct known today as the "Pont du Gard" which I have really, like her, always wanted to see. She (Michelle) even turned out to be a graduate student, so, in addition to ancient hydrodynamics, we had much else to talk about (like how ridiculous it is that bottles of water at the Pont du Gard cafe cost 3 euros). Sadly, we only had a short time to visit the Pont before the return bus. She had to organize her travels for the following day, and I had to catch the train that evening to Carcassonne. Back in Nimes, I drank two beers with fruit-flavored syrup (a European thing we haven't adopted yet in the States), picked up my backpack, and went up to the train platform to await my next TGV...

...to Carcassonne! Carcassonne is a famous castle town in Southern France named after a popular board game. Strangely, I could not find this game for sale anywhere in the city. A woman working at the castle gift shop told me that it might be because it, like her, is German. European prejudice strikes again! It may be for much the same reason that, as my previous host Stephane had informed me, it is impossible to buy foreign wine in France. Like everything else I've been visiting lately, "I've always wanted to go to Carcassonne." "Whatever!" you're saying to yourselves by now, but I mean it! And it's not even because of the board game, though you are within your rights to suspect it. No, it's because the Kevin Kostner movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" was filmed here. If there's a better reason to visit a place than that it once served as the set of a Kevin Kostner movie (also starring Alan Rickman!), I'd like to hear it. Of course, I wouldn't tell most people this. To the man on the street, I say that I'm fascinated by the medieval heresy of Catharism, one of its main centers having been Carcassonne. This is not untrue--I love the Cathars! They were a Christian sect so radical, they actually believed people should live according to the precepts of Jesus. Naturally, the Roman Church had no choice but to eradicate them in the 13th century, thus inaugurating the Dominican order of monks and the Holy Inquisition (cue Mel Brooks musical number) of much fame. It was during this "crusade" against the Cathars that the commanding priest, when asked how the soldiers would be able to distinguish Cathars from Catholics, famously uttered the quote headlining this post. Great religion, eh? At the Carcassonne train station, I was met by a Frenchman born in South Africa (as he describes himself) named Owen, my new host. He brought me to dinner at a friend's apartment (another couchsurfer) and then back to his place with his cute five year old daughter who wouldn't talk to me. I slept.

The next day, I "did" the castle. Carcassonne is divided into two separate "towns": the castle town up on the hill, inhabited by only 60 residents and 12,000 tourists, and the lower town built sometime around the 13th or 14th century (so much newer). The castle town is enormous and provides the eager sentimentalizing visitor (guilty!) with the best-preserved castle fortifications in... wait a minute, haven't I heard this before? "Whatever!" is what *I* said; it's UNESCO, it's gorgeous, I feel like I'm Christian Slater as Will Scarlett: all is well. In the 19th century, the city was restored and medievalized by the same guy who restored Notre Dame in Paris. This means that, instead of rebuilding the towers the way they actually were, he stuck a bunch of ridiculous Cinderella roofs on top of them. I'll have to watch the movie again to see whether or not they were Photoshopped out. The castle itself (the "castle castle" and not just the castle town) was nothing too special, in my estimation, though it did have a few of those quirky contemporary art exhibits the French seem to stick randomly inside their old monuments. With my entrance ticket, however, I did get a mandatory guided tour of the inner ramparts. Ramparts are cool because the word "ramparts" is awesome. I walked on the ramparts. How often does one get to say that? I also walked around the castle town walls a few times, inside and out, because I like walking around things (this much you know) and very much feeling like I was trapped in a David Macauley book come to life. After the castle, I popped back into town to visit a small John Miro exhibit at the local museum and do my last bit of food shopping in France.

This morning, I will be taking a train to the small Pyrenean border village of St. Jean Pied du Port, which is difficultly pronounced "Seun Zhon Pieh(d) doo Por(t)" but is still not as bad as Arles (don't ask). From there, I will begin the Camino Santiago, a one month pilgrimage walk across the north of Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostella. Along the way, I will visit the most beautiful cities, set in some of the loveliest countryside, of the Iberian peninsula. And that is how I will put a cap on this one year voyage around my smooth world. I'm living my dream, my friends. Are you living yours?

A Lovely Day Ascending Beautiful Mt. Ventoux, or, Why Won't I Ever F*cking Learn?

2008-06-25T10:35:00.007-08:00

They all told me it would be difficult. I scoffed. Mt. Ventoux? Difficult? It's not even 2000 meters! It's an armpit pimple compared to what I've already done! Take plenty of water? I'm The Steve. I don't need more than a trickle of forehead sweat running back into my mouth. If Petrarch, that lazy Pope-bitch who couldn't even read Greek, could do it, surely I could run laps around the thing. And with this hubristic attitude present in my mind, the travel gods struck me down.

I left my pay-for style accommodation in the morning, catching the first bus I could from Avignon to Carpentras. At the tourist office there, I inquired about onward transport to the village of Bedouin, 14 km away at the base of Mt. Ventoux (the highest mountain in Provence--yawn). There is a bus, apparently, but it only leaves twice a day at completely inconvenient times. This left me with only one, expensive option: taxi. So I hitchhiked. Lucky me! It only took the nice Swiss man who picked me up 15 minutes to find me. And he even brought me, out of his way, all the way to Bedouin! Wonderful! And guess what, he says to me, Monday is market day! Hurray! Not only do I get a ride to the cute, medieval farming village, but I'm treated to stall after tantalizing stall of Southern French cuisine--herbs and spices, cheeses, meats (not for me), olives, tapenades, produce, seafood, bakery goods, chocolate, soap all for sale, all beckoning deliciously (including the soap: I bought a violet). The entire Mediterranean diet and lifestyle strung out along a single, handy village lane. After the tiny bit of shopping in which I allowed myself to indulge, I pompously sauntered up to the tourist office, pizza avec quatre fromages in hand, and demanded to know the way to the mountain. The trail begins, the woman informed me in French (which I seem to understand), at an even smaller village 4 km further down the road. "How many of these f-ing villages are there?!" I yearned to ask but could not think of how to translate. I may not have mentioned this, but I can't help speaking English with a French accent when I'm in France (and much of the rest of the time, too). At the beach party, Max convinced me (it was pretty easy) to speak this way the whole time to everybody. My story was that I was French but living in America. My parents wanted me to learn English so I would fit in and didn't teach me French. Unfortunately, *they* taught me English themselves, being highly educated in it, so I ended up with their accent and no French-speaking ability. Much to my surprise, the French seemed to buy it, while those in the know were highly amused and impressed by my skill. I think I'm quite convincing, actually. The point of this aside is, I received retribution for this little stunt on the mountain.

Stomping off from the tourist office, I headed into the foothills. The trail up Mt. Ventoux is clearly marked, well-maintained, and easy to follow. Naturally, I got lost. My first indication that something was amiss came when the trail simply stopped dead. "What?" I thought. Well, I'd been told that Provence received an exceptional rainfall this winter, so perhaps the mountain paths were just a wee bit overgrown. Wee bit! I couldn't find it at all! I went back and forth, forth and back, for hours, making very slow progress and having to bushwhack my way painfully through all the goddamn beautiful scenery (ha, beautiful from a distance--try walking through all that picture-perfect, skin-lacerating foliage!). At one point, some tree or other must have unzipped the front pocket of my backpack, because my clock, pen, and sunglasses case were all gone. No problem with that, since I hated all of them (the case was handy, though). But, now I couldn't track my progress, which was increasingly seeming to me a progress toward death. I am not overreacting, people! I was in the thicket "stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
returning were as tedious as go o'er", as it were. And I was running out of water. Many cries of pain later (those brambles really hurt once all your shin-skin's been stripped away), I randomly ran into what looked like an actual path. I was wary, at first. But it was real: a real path! How had I missed it? "Who cares?" in my delirium, I asked no one in particular. Off I went! So happy was I to hit the fastlane again, I drank all the rest of my water, assuming I could reach the summit in less than 20 minutes. Hey, that was pretty stupid! Because the top was still a looooong way away. And the signs I sometimes passed were misleading. According to one, the summit was a mere five odd kilometers away. I walk at least five kilometers an hour, even uphill, so I felt I could wash my socks in my water if I wanted to (surely there'd be a fully equipped cafe at the top, hopefully Petrarch-themed, I figured). Ahem, it was not five kilometers away. I think I took another wrong turn, because the trail crossed the road the lazy tourists drive on to the top, and then I just started following that. Big mistake! The road is always a lot longer! In retrospect, I think dehydration must have affected my judgment (which was clearly functioning when I set out that morning). I walked on this empty road for at least five kilometers before it joined another, better road, that cars were just zipping past all the time on. So, I thought I could hitch to the top. But nobody would stop. Perhaps my beard makes me look like a terrorist, but, come on, grant the guy on the mountain road in the middle of nowhere some mercy! No mercy. The drivers that day were all tourists, I suppose, and tourists are sans pité. I had unkind thoughts. But I kept walking. At a certain point, I looked up: there was the top! High, high above me... my God, it was high above me, and I didn't know what time it was, I didn't have any water, it was extremely hot, I was perspiring heavily, I felt tired and dizzy, and it might have taken me at least another two hours on the tarmac to get up there. "Might have?" you ask. Yes, I did the unthinkable. I gave up.

Turning back around, I had no better luck hitching down to civilization. Deciding to go with the devil I knew, I returned on the same route I came in on, but, don't act so surprised, I got lost a third time, but not so badly since I was still on a well-defined track heading in a downhillwardly direction. Nevertheless, I had a long way to go: at least 14 kilometers in the still hot sun, and I was so, so thirsty. I couldn't think straight except to beg the travel gods for deliverance (but not like in the movie). At one point, I took a pee, and saw that it, a mere trickle, was dark and yellow and menacing. I was pretty sure of my imminent death and wondered if I'd left any mature content on my laptop when I finally saw signs of habitation: vineyards! Yes! Guarded by giant, ravenous rotweilers! Oh no! But the track turned into a road and houses started to appear, and I knew I must be saved. My savior himself was the first little old French man I saw in the near distance. "Monsieur! Monsieur! Si vous plait! Je suis un stupid tourist Americain! Eau, si vous plait! Eau!" I hoarsely cried out. And eau he gave me. I haven't decided if this man or the Swiss guy who gave me my first ride (and suggested I take lots of water) were *the* travel god incarnate, but it is likely they are both among their ranks. The man brought me back to his ridiculously cute farmhouse, where I sat down and just started panting. I couldn't take more than a sip of water at a time, and his wife found my moribund condition highly amusing (I'm sure it was). Eventually, I regained my composure. At one point, their son Guillaume came in, and he spoke English. After conferring with his parents and informing me that it was much later than I thought (no bus back to Avignon!), he asked if I'd like to have dinner with them, stay the night, and then ride with him back to Avignon early the next morning since he works there...

!

HOW DO THESE THINGS HAPPEN TO ME?? TELL ME! I WANT TO KNOW!

So I had a nice shower, a nice quiche, and slept in the nicest bed that's ever been volunteered to me. The next morning, I sat behind Guillaume on his moto and loved him and loved France and blessed my luck in spite of my idiocy.

Incidentally, Guillaume works for the world-famous Avignon Festival, which you probably haven't heard of. I thought that was pretty cool.

Too Many Popes

2008-06-22T08:49:00.003-08:00

Did I promise to say something about my sightseeing in Avignon? Do you really want to hear it? OK--the number one attraction is the Palace of the Popes, the residence of the papacy during the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the Church in the 14th century. At this time, the Holy Roman Empire was constantly fighting with the Church over the so-called Investiture Controversy (sleeping yet?), that is, over who had the right to control the Church (and appoint bishops) within a given kingdom, the king or the Pope. At one point, Rome and the Papal States became overly threatened by the Empire, so the Papal Court moved to Avignon, which it owned. Meanwhile, the Empire appointed its own Popes in Rome while the Antipopes (no joke) ruled in what is now France. At one point, there were even *three* Popes, which is, in my opinion, just too many Popes. These days, the palace is monumental and beautiful but also empty. So I was glad to go there and soak up the ambience, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone else given the admission price.

For a change of scenery, after visiting the palace, I hiked across the Rhone (ah, the Rhone Valley, home to my beloved Syrah) to a little village called Villeneuve, once the entrance to France coming from Papacy-dominated Avignon and environs. There's a castle there I figured I might as well check out since, basically, I could. It was empty, too. And a bee stung me.

OK, forget all the rest. In the evening, I met up with my Avignon hosts, Stephane and Claire, who informed me that they would be going down to the sea for a beach party the following day and that I was invited. I'm going to say no to that? We were joined by their friends Timothee and Max, two of the nicest people, French or otherwise, I've ever met. I like the French! You bigoted Americans don't know what you're missing. I know they seem standoffish at first, but once they figure out that you're not going to bite their heads off and shove bullshit down their exposed, gaping throats, they become the sweetest people you'll ever meet other than the Japanese (which they remind me of a little). Actually, we didn't go to the beach with Stephane and Claire. They left early to set up the generator and sound system (cool, eh?). Timothee, Max, and I were picked up and driven down the shore instead by Francois (I don't know if I am spelling these names correctly, nor where the accents or hooks go), another sweetest guy I've ever met. At the beach itself, I can't say I felt the most welcomed in my life, even though most of the youths there spoke English. It's funny how an ample supply of beer and wine makes that irrelevant, though. And, yet again, I found myself dancing into the early hours of the morning--at two parties, actually, since I crashed the one next door when we ran out of beer (and met another couchsurfer there!). How do these things keep happening to me? At one point, during a moment of particularly high excitement, I jumped onto Max (a tall guy) who happily followed up by swinging me around in circles until I felt pukey. Things died down around 3 am, and it was then that I realized I had nowhere to sleep; everyone else had brought tents. Stephane had lent me a sleeping bag, however, and I prudently purchased a foam mat at the (mouth watering) hypermarket we'd visited the night before, so I curled up and passed out happily in the music tent.

Waking early, Francois, Timothee, Max, and I dirtily trundled our way back to Avignon, where I had to egress from Stephane and Claire's (most awesome I've ever seen, old city) apartment due to mechanical troubles with someone's van at the party, an early morning the next day for Stephane and Claire, etc. So tonight I am once again (gasp!) *paying* for accommodation at the local hostel. It's so crude that some people actually expect you to pay money to stay with them, wouldn't you say?

Foutu en France

2008-06-20T02:08:00.000-08:00

In Europe, trains are never late. Except when I'm on one. So my train from Milan to Lyons, my high-speed pride-of-France TGV train, had engine trouble and was quite a bit late, and I missed my connected to Avignon. The SNCF staff were courteous and professional about it, though, and arranged for we who missed the connection, first a ride on a different train to Valence, then a shuttle bus from the Valence TGV station to the central station, then after a considerable wait during which I found a Turkish snack stall still open at midnight, a charter bus to Avignon, where I arrived at around 2:30 am with no clue what to do, my hosts there having had already to go, understandably, to bed. So I walked across the city to a hostel listed in my Lonely Planet. It was closed. I walked back to the train station. It too was closed. So I dropped my backpack to the ground, dropped my ass down next to it, and attempted to sleep on the pavement while the deafening chatter of construction work went on only 50 meters away. Luckily (luckily?), the station finally did open after 4 am, so I was able to park myself on an uncomfortable seat and sleep for a few hours with my face planted in my bag. At around 6 am, I roused myself and went out in search of coffee, for which I wounded up paying, in my delirium, 6.75VCU. I will say more about the sights and whatnot later after I've seen more of them. So far, I've only managed to tour the Palais du Papes, but Avignon is quite beautiful, and I imagine the rest of my time here will more than make up for last night's misfortune, which I should have expected after my "evil eye" bracelet from Turkey broke in the train. And I was really hoping last Friday the 13th would be the end of my misadventures. But this is traveling for real, my friends. No last minute 89 euro hotels for me when a nice, comfy parking lot is available for free. Funny that a beggar still asked me for money. How could I possibly have looked as though I actually had any? Pardon, mais je ne comprend pas le Français!

Po' in the Po Valley

2008-06-18T23:15:00.002-08:00

You last left your intrepid hero in the bowels of the former, as Oprah would have put it, "You go, Slavia!" But finally, from behind ye olde iron curtain, I have been crapped back into Western Europe. I thought I heard this on the overnight train from Ljubljana to Venice, but perhaps it was only my imagination:

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sightseeing and the sound of tourists but of mindless football fans; a journey into an overpriced land whose boundaries are that of the Schengen Agreement — next stop, the Euro Zone."

I was surprised to find that European trains are *less* comfortable than Indian ones. I wonder who the genius was that designed all the blocks of seats to face one another so not only do you constantly bump your knees against the other passengers, but you have to stare at their ugly faces for hours.

I arrived in Milan midmorning some days ago but had to wait until the evening to meet my host here, the charming and dashing Lorenzo. So I left my bags at the luggage room and tooled into the heart of one first Italian city in nine years. While Milan has a reputation for being unattractive, I think it's pretty enough, at least in the center. I walked past La Scala, where it's always been my dream to see an opera. "La Traviata" was on last night, in fact, but I was too busy getting drunk in the park outside the second night of Radiohead (more on that anon). As far as sights go--I saw few since I am now totally uninterested in them--I have to admit I was impressed with the duomo here, a ginormous white pile of towers, statues, buttresses, and even flying buttresses. But forget all that, because the coolest thing about it is you can go up onto the roof! Not just to the top of a tower, but actually ONTO the roof! Can you do that anywhere else? I've been to many cathedrals but none that permitted access there. As you can tell, I was delighted. See, some things still impress me. After that, I briefly met Raffaella, who, due to a miscommunication, biked halfway across the city to get a concert ticket from me that she mistakenly thought I had. Sorry, Rafaella! After that, after that, I randomly stumbled across a Peter Greenaway installation art exhibit presentation thing featuring Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper". This was pretty cool, too--Greenaway, in a departure from his usual pissing Cupid weirdness, uses special lighting and a soundtrack of mystique to explore and bring alive the painting, printed in large scale on a wall, in interesting and unusual ways. I felt after seeing it that I probably had a better experience of the famous painting than if I had actually gotten an appointment for the real one. I think I spent the rest of that day drinking coffee (LOVE IT here), eating pizza (still better in New Jersey), and wandering idly as is my custom. In the evening I met up with Lorenzo, and he was kind enough to cook risotto basilico for me. Yum.

The following day, I somewhat stupidly took a day trip to Verona, two hours away by train. But I had wanted to stop there--nothing could keep me away from the House of Juliet (I'm not joking). Also, I was supposed to stay with a man there named Sauro, who I kept changing my plans on. In the end, he was gracious about that, being a traveler himself, and still met up with me there for a brief tour and explanation about how the Church still owns the country. I skipped the Roman amphitheater on his recommendation (unusual behavior for me, but perhaps the Italians have had enough of Roman amphitheaters? they were preparing to perform "Aida" in this one), but I did pay too much money to visit the ridiculous House of Juliet and have my photo taken on the balcony. How could I possibly resist that? Beneath the balcony, there is even a bronze statue of Ms. Capulet. The famous photo most people (men) have taken there is of themselves holding her tit. I so wanted to ask them how they felt about doing that to a barely pubescent girl (Juliet was probably 12 or 13), in mid-photo naturally. But I did not.

In every way, Verona is a spectacularly beautiful city, perhaps one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. These Italian cities really are too much for me. They are just too attractive. I can't imagine living in such a place. Ah... sigh. Enough. Hightailing it back to Milan, I arrived in time for a major downpour. You may recall that I bought four tickets to a Radiohead concert here, hoping I might sell three of them in order to make some money, at least enough to pay for mine. These tickets were quite expensive, as was the cost of shipping and handling from the UK to the US and shipping again from the US to Italy. I thought I was so clever because, naturally, these tickets would be in high demand given the stature of this, my favorite band. There was, unfortunately, a certain football factor, other even than the rain and the presence of mafia selling their own tickets, that I could not have anticipated and because of which I cannot even bear to disclose the sad outcome of my little enterprise:

ITALY VS. FRANCE

Truly, my friends, I had no chance. What can one do when the universe is so aligned against you? I went in and enjoyed the concert anyway with Raffaella (who bought one ticket at my cost) and some other Couchsurfers. Que sera la vie.

The next day, since most people selling tickets for my show couldn't even give them away, I had the bright idea of going to the second show. Unfortunately (for my plan), it turned out to be a gorgeous day with no football, and the scalpers had no mercy, even after the show started. Nevertheless, I *still* had a great time hanging out with a bunch of even more couchsurfers and miscellanious Italians on the grass outside, listening for free and getting completely drunk. This morning, no hangover.

Sadly, I did not make it to CERN. My tour was cancelled, and they couldn't guarantee me a spot for the following day, so I opted not to waste time, money, and my own dwindling energy going up to Switzerland. No matter, today I am off to Avignon. Ciao!

This is Illyria, lady.

2008-06-15T09:19:00.003-08:00

Given the cost of Internet in Euroland, my posts may start becoming more perfunctory, unless I am writing from a host's computer, which today I am not.

So. I think I said I would say something about Albania. It's probably not as bad as you think... how about that? It looks pretty much like everywhere else. The women are exceptionally beautiful, something I appreciated when I crossed into Montenegro, where, decidedly, they are not. I had a great time hanging out with Teni. He told me all about Albanian history and had some interesting opinions about things. Albanians believe themselves to be the descendants of the ancient Illyrians, who occupied what is now the former Yugoslavia in ancient times (I just wrote "is now the former Yugoslavia"... is that an anachronism or prolepticism?). Teni told me that what most Grecians, who think ill of Albania, don't know or refuse to believe is that they are actually Albanians themselves. Sounds pretty typical! Naturally, we went bar hopping in the evening and got drunk. I am starting to wonder if Europe isn't just a place where people are always either in cafes or bars and most likely watching football. Such a decadent place. At one point, I went down to a grassy bit next to the "river" (which looks like a sewage ditch) and attempted to show Teni the head stand yoga position. I failed. Later, I noticed that all my Albanian lekes fell out of my pocket in the process. The next morning, I went back, found them, and bought breakfast.

Crossing the former Yugoslavia was a bit grueling. I first took a minibus from Tirana to Shkroder, a town in the north of the country. I think that's how it's spelled. From there, I had to take another bus across the border itself into the world's second newest country, Montenegro. Montenegro is SLC wedged in between about five other SLCs. I had to bus-hop from town to town to make my way across it. Despite its size, this took all day. At one point, I met a Montenegrin from Chicago who said he works for Bank of America and is the President of the American Society of Montenegro or something. He was wearing a nice suit, so I believed him. He also told me how much the Montenegrins hate Serbs and Croats. Some VIPs showed up later, including a religious figure in appropriate apparel. I ended up around midnight in a place called Herci Novi or something, a town, like every other town in Montenegro, with a castle, a historic center, and a bunch of bars. I had intended on staying in Kotor, which has Europe's southernmost fjord (and, I suppose, a good alternative place to visit if you can't a-fjord Scandinavia haha), but the bus attendant told me I was better off going on to the end of the line. I hate him now, because I couldn't find any cheap rooms in Herci Novi and ended up paying a budget slaughtering 38 euros for a shitty hotel room that including a shitty breakfast that was mostly meat (I gave it up again because it was sickening me). I'm glad I didn't sleep outside, though, as I thought I might, because there was torrential rain, most of which leaked through the window into my shitty hotel room.

In the morning, I learned what I was about to face in Croatia when I had to pay an extra 2VCU to store my bags in the luggage compartment of the bus to Dubrovnik. Bastards! Upon arrival in Dubrovnik, I immediately set out to visit the old town (one of these days, I *will* get sick of old towns), which was once known as Ragusa and was a major rival to Venice during the Renaissance. Well, Dubrovnik turned out to be the ultimate overpriced FTT. It is very pretty but just completely overrun with camera-toting bus people (and cruise linering boat people). One saving grace were the city walls. I love walking around old city walls. Dubrovnik's are particularly well-preserved and from on top of them you get some lovely views of the expensive cafes.

After a few hours in Dubrovnik, I split for Split (Spalato in Italian), just barely missing the early bus because of traffic and resigned to the somewhat later bus, which deposited me in Split around 8 pm. So, I had two hours (until 10 pm, when the bus station luggage room closed) to visit the awesome remains of Diocletian's palace, most of which has been converted into a series of, you guessed it, overpriced bars and cafes for decadent Europeans to waste their money and lives watching football. Still, the palace is impressive, and I was lucky that the cavernous basement was still open. I've never seen a Roman ruin of such grandeur before, mostly because none of them are left. But this place, in its beautiful hugeness, is special, and I hope someday to go back when I'm not rushing across the Balkans like an idiot who can't plan trips.

At 11 pm, I caught another bus to Zagreb, the last place I wanted to go. But there was no other choice. I paid for a piss, I paid to store my bags on the bus, and off I went on an uncomfortable, mostly sleepless journey to the capital of Croatia. I arrived in the early morning and went to the information desk to ask about onward buses to Ljubljana. I was told in Dubrovnik and Split that I'd easily be able to get one and that they depart every half hour. The information lady, naturally, told me there's only one per day at 2 pm. Groan. What about a train? She didn't know. This is a problem in Croatia. The information people don't know anything about other cities. In Dubrovnik, nobody knew about buses out of Split. In Split, no one could tell me about onward transport from Zagreb. I think they should rename them "misinformation offices" and put a lowercase 'm' inside of a circle, instead of an 'i'. The lady in Zagreb was unfriendly, too, as were many people I had to deal with there. Anyway, I wandered in a 5 am daze around the city, looking for the train station, to which I kept being misdirected. I found a nice man who couldn't speak English but whose German I could just barely comprehend, and we went to the station together, since he was on his way to Belgrade. Luckily, thank you travel gods, there was a 7:50 am train to Ljubljana, Slovenia, and this I took, and now there I am.

My host here, Tamara, happens to work at the "hippest" youth hostel in town and, apparently, one of the 25 top places to stay in the world. It's a converted prison in which the rooms are former cells, each one renovated in a unique "hip" style by a different "hip" designer. It is a pretty cool place as hip youth hostels go, but at 19 euros a night, not a place I would deign to stay if I could avoid it. I have to say, too, that it bears out Ljubljana native Slavoj Zizek's observation that the relics of the Communist era have, in a strange way, become fetishized emblems of "the good old days" of Communism today (strange because of the brutality of the Communist system; you don't see this sort of thing happen with the remains of Nazism, for example)--so it is natural that a prison would be converted into a hotel. The current prime minister of Slovenia was even held here once, and he and his fellow inmate-comrades recently came to the hotel for an anniversary luncheon. I didn't see much of the city this first day, because I was tired and it was raining, but I did find one of Zizek's no doubt many offices in the Faculty of Philosophy building (he did *not* magically appear and sign my book, though), and I visited the "castle" (not so impressive). Ljubljana has been compared to Vienna, and I guess I can accept that. It is a little bit like Vienna on a small scale, with many pretty buildings, fountains, a river, and so forth. And, of course, bars--to one of which Tamara, a friend of hers, and I repaired when her shift at the hostel ended. There followed the usual drinking and dancing until 4 am (how do I keep letting myself get talked into these things?) after which Tamara and I went back to her place and slept until noon. Today, I meandered around the old town part of the city a little bit more, visited the city museum, and had the best falafel of my life at a little restaurant operated by a Palestinian. We had a nice chat, and then he charged me 3 euro each for two pieces of baklava. I paid, picked my eyes up off the floor, and went off to write this blog entry. Tonight, I'm overnighting it by train to Milan via Venice (groan again).

So much for perfunctory...

A Grecian Tragedy

2008-06-11T05:23:00.002-08:00

Friends, I am ashamed of myself. I have betrayed not only my calling and good sense but also the cause of backpackers around the world. Do you remember when I said that I could easily lie to get into the Acropolis for free as a "European" student? I just couldn't bring myself to do it... and the travel gods have punished me. Oh, I got my look at the most famous monument of Western Civilization five years after the first time I saw it--and it looks more or less the same--but I paid a high cost, higher than the 9VCU entrance tariff.

The following day, I finally got around to buying a bus ticket to Tirana, Albania. Beforehand, I had lunch with John Coleman, the Cornell archaeologist I worked for briefly in 2003, and his wife, Laura. I had a great time seeing them again. John just finished teaching only one of two courses in the history and philosophy of atheism in the United States, which courageous act earned him the ire of many of his enlightened Ivy League colleagues. I doubt he cares much, though, because he's just retired and he and Laura will be building a house in Greece (of course I plan to visit). Oh yes, I had a great ole time, until I went back to Lena's place and 1) discovered one of my three pairs of high performance underwear missing, 2) with only minutes to pack and rush to the bus station, accidentally locked the keys to my backpack inside my backpack... for the second time this trip (scroll back to my first Mumbai post), and 3) on arrival in Tirana, found that I had also left my shampoo and beloved shower poof ("loofah") at Lena's apartment. I have learned my lesson, friends, and will not be telling the truth any longer where my integrity as a scum of the Earth traveler is concerned. Clearly, it angers the powers above.

Despite these mishaps, I at least made it to Tirana. The bus ride took about 16 hours, with a nice 3 am border crossing to keep me on my toes. To gain ingress to Albania, I was charged the princely sum of 1 euro at the border, what for I can only guess. My Lonely Planet said I would have to pay 10, so at least one pleasant surprise was intermingled among the bad news of the day. I was met in Tirana by Irena, a kind Albanian I contacted through the Couchsurfing website. By the way, if you want more information about this whole couchsurfing thing, here is a video report on it from Business Week magazine: http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?fr_story=f265eaf6c3ab4de95757e228d778f6851e82fcfc

Anyway, Irena met me and right away we bumped into her friend Tani, the guy with whom I spent most of the day. They brought me to a kind of apartment homestay--really nice place. The young woman there, when I asked the price, said 10 dollars or 10 euros. I said, "Really? Or?" She said, "...yes." "Really? Don't you know they're different?" "It's OK. You decide." Luckily, I had VCUs on me and paid her with that, my currency of choice, but only because I am loyal to my country and prefer using its products and finance instruments whenever possible. The punchline is, as I was later informed, she's studying economics. But, as I was also informed, Albanians, once they say something, don't like to contradict themselves. Certainly works for me. I will have more to say about Albania in my next post. Tani showed me around the city, which looks typical enough, but he, Irena, and I will spend more time together after the nap I'm supposed to be taking, and now will go and take, right now.

All Rhodes lead to Athens

2008-06-08T07:34:00.003-08:00

Like a Rhodes Scholar, I left dusty Rhodes (having accomplished my goal of visiting Rhodes not taken) and sailed to Athens. More precisely, since I didn't do any of the sailing (and the ferry was not wind-powered), I boarded the jumbo Blue Star ship "Diagoros" which cruised smoothly to Piraeus, the port of Athens (now and 2500 years ago). The classic way of traveling by ferry in Greece is to find a quiet corner in one of the lounges and set up a little camp. The ferries are enormous and quite plush, so comfort is not an issue. I even managed to take a shower. Luckily, June is not quite high season in Hellas, so the ferry was practically, for its size, empty, and I had an entire couch to myself. I slept happily for much of the 17 hour journey and read "Gulliver's Travels" the rest of the time. I did not throw up.

On arrival at Piraeus, I boarded the convenient metro to Ano Patisia station, from which I walked to the apartment of Lena, my Grecian Athenian host, who seems to have hosted most of the global couchsurfing community (or is currently). She wasn't home, so I was let in by Michelle, a Brooklynite also staying here. And I met Michael, an American (Baltimore) classicist-linguist-archaeologist (he calls himself a "Mycenologist" but you don't know what that means, do you, readers?) who explained to me--and I was eager to listen--the precise etymological reason why the Grecian words "zoe" (life, as in zoology) and "bios" (life, as in biology) are really the same word. Cool stuff, I warrant you. After lounging around waxing philolinguically for awhile, I set out for the National Archaeological Museum, my putative only reason for bothering to come to Athens again (which, I admit, I like better this time around--it's nice to be in a country for once where I can at least say "please" and "thank you" and where I even have a fighting chance at being able to read things). I spent about six hours there and was blown away by much of what I saw: almost the first thing was the famous gold mask called (erroneously) by Heinrich Schliemann (he got around) the mask of Agamemnon. I have to say, however, in all honesty, that the museum's collection is, judiciously speaking, not very good. Unfortunately for Greece, most of its signature archaeological treasures have been looted by Europeans. What remains are the remains, what has been donated, and recent finds (some of which are certainly impressive). The museum feels a bit empty, though the exhibits are well labeled, and the museum as a whole presents a decent overview of the history of Grecian art and sculpture--when it isn't being Hellenocentric, that is, and suggesting the natural and obvious superiority of everything Grecian (as in "My Big Fat Greek (sic) Wedding").

I got a student discount, of course, though I have discovered that EU students get into all these attractions for *free*. They always ask me where I am from, and I have become tempted to start lying, much as it pains me (while I readily tell untruths, I do not like to lie). I started back to Lena's place but ran into her outside the metro station and therefore turned right back around to head to the beach (she's a fun lady) to join a couchsurfing party in progress. Once again, and not at my expense, I got trashed. We finally made it back (note the lacuna) to the apartment after 4 am, covered in sand, and Lena, myself, and her son all collapsed in his room. Today, I woke up late, walked around the Acropolis, and sat down to finish Gulliver's Travels. Plaka, the historic part of Athens, is still a FTT. Ah, just as I remember it. Tonight, I'm going to *another* CS party.

I like these Grecians.

Death Drive

2008-06-06T02:19:00.004-08:00

The title of this post refers to the Freudian concept by which the very pursuit of (and failure to obtain) something--a desire--becomes itself the basic function of life's continuance. For example, I travel, theoretically anyway, in order to reach destinations. And yet, as soon as I reach a destination, I am already looking forward to the next destination (or looking forward to remembering it? like sexual intercourse?). I never actually "arrive" anywhere (psychologically, anyway). There is no satisfaction. My drive to travel just continues to circulate, endlessly, around the unachievable goal. If I were to achieve it, I suppose I would cease to exist, since that would mean cancelling out the mode of my existence (that is, my personality). I think this must be the case, because there is no other explanation for what keeps propelling me forward on this ridiculous and ever more ridiculous adventure. To wit...

Umit bid me farewell two mornings ago at the Turgutreis port. A little over an hour later, I was stepping once again onto Grecian terra firma--the tiny "party island" of Kos. Having no intention to stay there any longer than necessary, I quickly purchased a ticket to Rhodes departing the same day at 4:30 pm. Unfortunately, only the high-speed option was available, so the ticket cost me (spit take) €30. Fortunately, I had enough time to check out this island. Much to my delight, there were ruins. I like ruins, you understand. They remind me of life's fragility. Ha ha, no they don't! That's stupid! I just can't get over the fact that entire societies existed in the same space we occupy before us and that things from them remain, things from which we try so hard to draw continuities to ourselves, however much they persist in being completely different in ways we cannot fathom. And they're picturesque. I was in luck on Kos, because, as I mentioned, it was the home of Hippocrates, father of medicine, and a few sites there were connected with him. First of all, there is a large plane tree (not looking so good, actually--seems to have been split in half by Zeus's lightning or something) that the Grecians claim is the exact same tree beneath which the old man used to teach his students. Believe it? I really, really don't. What is with people? Do they just *want* to believe stupid shit like that? I took a photo, of course, and even bought two Hippocrates statues from one of the ubiquitous souvenir vendors for my doctors back home (they've earned them). Being from the vicinity of the magic tree, I assume they will have some kind of supernatural palliative power. A 4 km walk from Kos town ("You can't walk!" they told me) are the ruins of the Asclepion, once an important temple sanctuary dedicated to the eponymous god of healing, where doctors would pray in their dreams to the god for healing and, presumably, healing powers (today, doctors just worship their medical equipment and computers). I managed to hitch a ride back to town with a nice German couple (the other option was the Disneyland-esque tourist tram, on which I WOULD NOT BE CAUGHT DEAD). You see, it's important when traveling, and makes life much easier, to learn the local language, which, in Greece, is German.

Having a bit of time left, I decided to try one of my old Grecian favorites at one of the rip-off tourist restaurants near the port: saganaki. Usually, this is a generous portion of cheese doused in liquor which is then set on fire at your table. I got a small slab of breaded cheese with no liquor that cost 6 verdant currency units (my new name for the once-almighty, now third-world American "dollar"). I frowned. I relaxed, because I had everything planned out and was quite pleased to have accomplished all that I set out to do. You see, my friends, I've been traveling for such a long time--and not just this trip--that I rather pride myself, humble person though I am, on being quite an expert at this business and on being diligent, thorough, punctual, and detail-oriented. Despite this, I STILL MISSED THE FUCKING FERRY!!! By about 5 minutes, I think. Why? Because I had set my clock slow when I should have set it fast. Ah, what could I do? At least get a refund, right? The woman at the travel agency was well amused by this suggestion. So instead, I had to settle for the slow (and cheaper) ferry departing the next morning at 5:30 am. My original option had been for one of these two boats, and I opted to save time rather than money. Little did I know that I'd end up buying both. Tip: buy your ticket at the port just before you leave, rather than in advance. Plans can change and idiocy often intervenes ("idiot" is a Grecian word, by the way).

Stuck on Kos for the night, I figured I should punish myself by sleeping outside. I considered this but also considered that I'd be eaten alive by mosquitoes. So I wandered, asking people where I could find a cheap room. On most Grecian islands, people rent rooms in their houses to travelers and line up to hawk them at the port whenever a ferry arrives. I found a good neighborhood for this and went into the first "Rooms available" place I passed. "How much?" I wondered. The affable lady in charge said €20. I frowned again and said I could pay €10 and no more. This excited her. Then she whispered to me that her mandatory German guests were paying €20, but if I didn't say anything, I could pay €15. I said no. She said, "OK, €14." I said, "I'll come back later." She got more excited. And then relented. Score! She has no idea what I've been through--forged in the fire of India, I am. But she made me swear I wouldn't tell the Germans. "I'm American, lady," I said, "I don't tell the Germans anything." The next morning, after an anxious, sleepless night, I made it to the ferry on time...

...only to be stopped by the police on arrival at Rhodes. I must look suspicious, with my beard, sunglasses, giant backpack, traveling alone. A plainclothes detective pulled me aside and made me wait with a group of miscellanious Europeans while they checked my passport. I reckoned that the other guys were Albanians or something. When I saw one of them emerge from around the corner of the police station with the detective, the latter removing from his hand a rubber glove, I grew a little bit tense. But they let me go without violating my privacy after their cute drug sniffer failed to find the dope. I left my backpack at the port and strategically did NOT buy a ticket for Athens, that ferry leaving at 6 pm. Instead, I hopped on a bus to the south of island. Two hours later, I was standing at the turn-off to the tiny village of Askleipieo, birthplace of my friend Alex Pappas's father. I figured I would visit for kicks, and I hoped something "ethnic" might happen to me. Sadly, Alex's relatives are all either dead, gone to Athens, or (like him) gone to America. Only one woman, a cousin, was left in the emigration-depleted village, and she wasn't home. The old guys at the cafe who helped me find her house offered to buy me coffee (ethnic experience here I come!), but, as usual, I was in a rush to get back to Rhodes town so I could catch the ferry to Athens, which, naturally, I missed. So once again I was off in search of a cheap room. When I finally found some rooms, the lady's starting price was €30. The first room she showed me was not bad: it only had two used condoms and a full ashtray on the nightstand, but was otherwise clean and comfortable. Registering my trauma, the lady quickly ushered me into another room, this one with an attached bathroom. "How much?" I queried. "How much do you want to pay?" she fired back. "€10," I answered truthfully. And she became even more upset than the Kos lady, telling me how it's impossible to find a room for such a low price. Uh huh. I've got two words for you, lady: off season. She offered €20. I said €10. She suggested €15. I thought about this and told her I'd think about it and come back later (works every time, my friends). She got a little panicky and said, OK, I could have the condom room for €10. Although I was disgusted, I figured this counted as a reasonable settlement, and I agreed. BUT. I slept in the single bed, not the double (ewww). This ruthlessness tactic seems to work best in the evening, when people are desperate to have anyone stay. The poor old lady kept her sweet demeanor, but I could tell she was quite vexed, and her negotiating certainly had its share of complaints and pleas. I am, however, homeless, jobless, and almost broke. Do you see the red halo around my pupils, growing thicker every day since I landed in Beijing? I have no mercy. When I saw the posted price for my crappy little room on the door (€50!), I felt even the opposite of pity. What goes around comes around, my friends, especially on this exploitative ball of shit and grief we call the Earth.

On day two at Rhodes, today, I explored the old town, which has the finest surviving medieval fortifications in the world and also the most tourist shops and restaurants per square foot. But I was glad I stuck around, because they really are spectacular fortifications. I started my day at the Castle of the Knights, restored by Mussolini but never used as his holiday home. Inside there was nothing to see, but I enjoyed the chance to wander around spacious medieval Halls that were once the principal stomping ground of the fabled Knights of St. John (oh wait, they aren't fabled, they're still a nation-state, remember?). I got there early enough to avoid the tourist groups, too, which made me happy. After that, I checked out the medieval buildings on the nearby Odos Hippoton, or Street of the Knights, and then walked out of the old city to visit the alleged site of the Colossus of Rhodes (not to be confused with my friend Alex Pappas), which could not possibly have stood astride the harbor, but did grant the island a +1 bonus to trade. And I spent the rest of the day as I always do in such places: gawking, walking at the pace of a dead march, and avoiding touts. My student card got me mega discounts everywhere, so I even got to see some sites (in addition to the castle, the archaeological museum), which would otherwise have cost me 15VCU each. One nice thing you can do is walk along the bottom of the old moat (it's dry and grassy now so you don't drown). I did this.

And now I must go again. My ship sails for Piraeus at 3 pm, and it's now 2:20. I don't want to push my luck again. The journey to the mainland takes 17 hours, during which time I will probably find repose only by squeezing myself onto the floor between the seats or sleeping with the motley herd of other backpackers on the deck. Truly, though, my way is the only way to travel.

Allah Akhbar!

2008-06-03T21:18:00.003-08:00

I forgot to mention: after reading the entire Quran, I converted to Islam:

Bicentennial Man

2008-06-03T11:17:00.002-08:00

If you would like to view Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper", I believe there are a few reservation slots available in August and September. Otherwise, like me, you are S.O.L. Who would have thought (and I wish I'd thought of it sooner) you'd need to book in advance to look at one painting? Thanks, Dan Brown.

Friends, this is my 200th post! I think it unlikely that I'll make it to 300, though. I am finding less and less time these days to post. When I stay with people, as I've been doing consecutively since I left India, I try not to spend so much time on their computers. Also, travel fatigue is slowly transmuting into travel exhaustion. I recommend new readers to go back and read my blog from the beginning. Long-term readers (both of you), hang in there. We've traveled this together far on a long and winding road.

I have, for the past few days, been at the lovely seaside home of a woman with the unlikely name of Umit Ferguson--well, she married an American! Umit has just been couchsurfing herself in Greece, and I always love to catch hosts when they're recently back from being hosted, because they are that much more tolerant of guests. Those of you who know me well can vouch for how much toleration is required. Umit's house is on a hillside overlooking the Aegean Sea. My room (the best room) is on the top floor of the house; it's all windows, and I have the best view. Why? She is also the author of a Turkish cookbook and keeps insisting that I eat her food, which I keep failing to refuse. The town they live in is about 30 km from Bodrum and is a bit of a resort but is relaxed enough (Bodrum itself is god-awful touristy) and has that Greek-style "Electric Light" Seamus Heaney wrote about. From here, I can even see the Greek island of Kos, to which I am headed later this morning. I should warn you that, in the spirit of accordance with the "King's English", I fully intend, from hereonin, to refer to the people of Hellas, a la W. Bush, as "Grecians." We should be so lucky he didn't call the people of *this* country "Turkeys!"

Yesterday, I went into Bodrum proper to get a lay of the land. Bodrum was known in ancient times as Halicarnassus, site of the famous Seven Wonders of the World member the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The word Mausoleum comes from the name of the king, Mausolus, who built it for himself. Hence, my final resting place shall be called the Syrekeum. Vegetarian burnt offerings only, please. Umit's husband, Jim, told me not to bother visiting the Mausoleum because there's nothing left of it except a giant pit in the ground. As if that would deter me! When I went, I was a little bit disappointed to see that there's nothing left of the Mausoleum except a giant pit in the ground that costs $4 to look at. At least the not quite overwhelming Museum of Underwater Archaeology housed in the former castle of the Knights of St. John let me in for free--finally Turkey recognizes my "student" status! Afterward, with nothing else to do, I went to the cinema, where a film I could only identify as "kung-fu movie starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan" was about to start; well, it certainly sounded like the kind of thing I would like...

I couldn't get a direct ferry to Rhodes from Bodrum or the town I am staying in, Turgutreis, so I must instead go to Kos, birthplace of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and then transfer. And that is what I'll be doing today. I am excited just thinking about the next and last two months of my trip: since Obama has clinched the nomination, I won't be bothered anymore by people asking me who I support. Wish me godspeed, my friends, as I enter that wicked and unfriendly place Americans most fear to tread: the Eurozone.

Farewell, Turkey, I hardly knew ye!

Ruined

2008-06-01T07:25:00.002-08:00

Warnıng: thıs post suffers from dotless 'ı' syndrome.

I love vısıtıng ruıns, as many of you doubtless are aware. But I've seen so many ruıns ın the past few days, I thınk I *am* a ruın. Fırst: Troy. When you've been enthralled by ancıent hıstory sınce you stıll had baby teeth, there ıs a certaın amount of heıghtened sentımentalıty that accompanıes a vısıt to Troy, THE archaeologıcal sıte, the archaeologıcal sıte par excellence. But I had to take a long bus rıde to get there.. have I mentıoned yet that my lıfe lately seems to be a hell of bus statıons? I have certaınly felt ıt. Other people have memorıes of travel that ınvolve lazy, ıntoxıcated days on beautıful, palm-frınged beaches; or gorgeous hotel lobbıes fılled wıth the concourse of gorgeous, prosperous people all lookıng for a score of one sort or another; or multıday adventures whackıng through jungles, hıgh-peakıng ın mountaın ranges, raftıng down ragıng rıvers, etc. For me, ıt's one smelly, chaotıc, overprıced bus statıon after another as I drag myself across Asıa's smılıng face (and I don't trust that smıle). Stıll jealous? OK enough complaınıng...

Back to the story. It took about sıx hours to get from İstanbul to Çanakkale, the base town for vısıts to Troy. We traveled vıa Gallıpolı, known to my heart as the Hellespont and to Australıans as the sıte of Peter Weır's early Mel Gıbson fılm "Gallıpolı" ın whıch a bunch of them (not Gıbson) get kılled for followıng the barmy orders of the jackass Poms. In my ımagınatıon, I had the followıng conversatıon wıth a local:

Me: Excuse me, but I am lookıng for Aıgospotomoı. Do you know where ıt ıs?

Local: What?

Me: Aıgospotomoı. It's the sıte of a famous battle that took place between Athens and Sparta durıng the Peloponnesıan War.

Local: What?

Me: It's a beach somewhere near the Hellespo.. uh Gallıpo.. uh Gelibolu.

Local: What?

Me: Never mınd. I'll fınd ıt myself.

Local: What?

From Çanakkale, I took a mınıbus to Truva, Troy, and suddenly there ıt was, the Bronze Age tel of my dreams. And busloads of Japanese tourısts, who I am usually delıghted to see. Thıs tıme I wanted to kıll them. Out front of the sıte proper ıs a gıant Trojan Horse for ıdıots to use ın funny photos. At the sıte ıtself, there really ısn't much to see, but you can gaze through the gıant trench the German amateur excavator Heınrıch Schlıemann moronıcally gashed through the mound at the vast plaın of the Troad and ımagıne Brad Pıtt stormıng hıs way across ıt to the gates (Run!).

I stayed that evenıng at Emre's place. Great guy. He had a date so I spent the evenıng, courtesy of hıs recommendatıon, fınally seeıng the new Indıana Jones movıe ın Englısh. For some reason, I could do thıs ın a country town but not İstanbul.

The next day, I left early for Bergama, another sıx hours away, another ruın, thıs one of the ancıent Pergamene cıty of... Pergamum (note the homology). Even more than Troy, I wanted to vısıt thıs cıty. I don't have a very good reason. Basıcally, ıt was ındependent for several centurıes after beıng conquered by Alexander and passed off to one of hıs generals and then the last kıng, Attalus I thınk, bequeathed ıt to the Roman Empıre ın hıs wıll. I never heard of such a thıng! Attalus: "I, Attalus, beıng of sound mınd, do hereby leave my kıngdom to the Romans." Servant: "Uh, sıre, are you really allowed to do that?" Attalus: "Sılence!" Anyway, I was stunned by Pergamum, blown away and amazed ın every way by how much the taxı drıvers wanted to take me there. I dıd get away wıth a decent prıce, but I have to say, Turkey ıs draınıng my money, even though I've been reduced to lıvıng on tea and bakery goods. Pergamum ıs famous for ıts hıgh Acropolıs, and ıt does loom quıte powerfully over the modern town of Bergama. I loved ıt. I thınk ıt's got a good chance to be one of the hıghlıghts of my trıp to Turkey. Not to mentıon the locatıon wıth ıts great vıews, not to mentıon the excellent theater carved ınto the top of the hıghest peak ın the area, and not to mentıon the decent state of preservatıon of the prıncıpal monuments at the very top, Pergamum ıs just enormous, and the remaıns of the lower cıty stretch from the top all the way down the back of the slopıng Acropolıs hıll to the bottom--where no tour groups go! You just follow the blue dots, and all to yourself you get streets, ancıent housıng, bathhouses, vıllas, mosaıcs, gymnasıums, and more toppled columns than a young boy (at heart) could know what to do wıth!

I thought the only place that could top Pergamum would be Ephesus. I left Bergama the same day I arrıved and reached ın the evenıng a cıty called Aydın, where I was met by Raşit, my next host. Serıously, people, there ıs no reason to pay for accomodatıon anymore! Today, I fınally dıd set out for Ephesus. When I arrıved, I had company: more tour groups than I'd yet seen anywhere ın Turkey. Ugh. To be sure, Ephesus ıs a nıce sıte. But ıt ıs by no means spectacular, UNESCO status notwıthstandıng. There's a gıant theater, a nıce lıbrary façade, and some partıally restored buıldıngs, but so much of ıt ıs closed off or just clogged, lıke a toılet at an Indıan bus statıon, wıth the shıt of humanıty that I found ıt hard to enjoy. Nearby the cıty ıtself are the mınımal remaıns of the Artemesıum, the great temple to Artemıs that was once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancıent World (check!) and allegedly burned down the nıght of Alexander the Great's bırth (belıeve ıt...?). Above that are the remaıns of a basılıca allegedly buılt over the grave of St. John the Evangelıst (belıeve ıt...?). Lots of credulıty to go around ın Ephesus (they even have a cave where seven people slept for four hundred years or somethıng, and the house where the Vırgın Mary spent the last years of her lıfe or somethıng, but, havıng had enough Bıblıcal bullshıt ın the Holy Land, I opted not to vısıt). I thought about vısıtıng Mıletus, home of the Mılesıan pre-Socratıc phılosophıcal school, but fıgured ıt would be better not to rush thıngs. So I came back to Aydın to wrıte thıs post ınstead. Tomorrow, I wıll probably go to Bodrum and then, soon after, saıl off to Rhodes. And that's all for now. Thanks for readıng, readers.

Nobody knows but the Turks

2008-05-29T09:55:00.002-08:00

Today I thought I would walk the entire length (7 km) of Constantinople's old inland city walls, and possibly add on the rest, too (+40 km?). Those who know me will not be surprised. But. I also wanted to see the local museum of archaeology, which required more time than expected. This, and not the fact that the alcoves of the ruined wall are inhabited by drug-addicted derelicts and rabid dogs, is what prevented me from carrying out this mission. So, some other time. Instead, I left Selin's apartment in the late morning and wandered over to the remains of a Roman aqueduct. Aqueducts are awesome. From there, I meandered to the nearby Suleyman Mosque, most of which was closed for restoration (but free, so who cares). After the mosque, I ambled through the market to the aforementioned archaeology museum(s) and spent hours looking at marble busts and such. I love this. I was pretty tired after the museum(s) but still found enough energy to trudge up to the "basilica cistern", the mundane name and $8 admission fee of which had initially turned me off to it. Well, it was pretty magnificent inside. You go down under the city and into a vast, cavernously vast, subterranean water storage environment. It's all held up by rows of columns, lit by weird, colorful lights, and clichéd themes from baroque and classical music play ambiantly in the background. The highlight are two Medusa heads built into the bases of two of the columns. They are highlights because one of them is upside down and the other one is on its side. So mysterious! The tourists loved it... OK, I did, too. Those are the *interesting* things I did today. I also did other, less interesting things (like finally locating the Sublime Porte and buying bread and cheese for my next six meals). But I won't recount those in detail. Sadly, I didn't have any awkwardly humorous encounters with eccentric people. But tomorrow...

I'M GOING TO TROY!!!!!!!

İstanbulshıt

2008-05-28T22:35:00.002-08:00

I have to say something I am loathe to say lest I disappoint my readers and insult my new Turkish friends, should they possibly be reading this: I am somewhat disappointed with Istanbul. I was looking forward to visiting this city as almost nowhere else on my trip, but it has, I think, fallen off from its heyday as a pen of antiquity and den of iniquity. Potential EU membership must be the death knell responsible for the sanitization of the historic quarter, Sultanahmet, which seems to me as hideously fake and touristic--in that overpriced restaurant, no student discount, hordes of fatuglypoorlydressed Europeans way--as Florence, Cuzco, and Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco. The "new" part of the city, Taksim, looks like every other capitalism-molested downtown strip on Earth: rows of high-end designer boutiques, piles of cafes (but no good coffee), American chain establishments, and stupid theme bars. I wonder sometimes why I even visit them anyway because, like in Paul Kelly's song, every fucking city looks the same.

But despair not, readers! I *am* having a good time here, even if my critical gaze gets the better of me always. My friends Michael and Jessica happened to be here for their vacation, and I had the opportunity to meet up with them. The 26th was Michael's birthday, too, and they celebrated by paying for my dinner (thanks, guys!). We also spent three days tooling around the city, visiting the sites, wandering the neighborhoods, and absolutely failing to locate a cinema where we could watch the new Indiana Jones movie in English (it's dubbed everywhere, groan). The Blue Mosque, which turned out to be the first mosque either of them had ever visited, was sublime. Topkapı Palace was, I don't know, sort of boring I guess (note my noncommittal non-enthusiasm), but that harem was interesting (worth an extra $8 I can't say). Aya Sofia, which I'd been waiting my whole life to see, did not disappoint: a giant heap of Roman basilica whose origins and original Christian grandeur no amount of Ottoman Muslim repurposing could obscure--and you could go up to the mezzanine level! I love that! There were other things, but none as fun as our attempts to eat the pişmaniye I bought--after one bite, the little strands of candy floss fell everywhere, at least one half of every piece *I* tried to eat ended up in my beard.

On their last day before returning to America, yesterday, we took a day-long trip up the Bosporus by boat to a small town near the Black Sea. The coast is stunning all the way, with old villas and rich people's houses providing much of the scenery, the up-poking cypress trees adding that inimitable Mediterranean ambiance. On arrival at small town, we immediately sauntered (yes, sauntered) uphill to the broken Venetian fortress, from where we got a view all the way back to the city. Just below there, we collapsed into a restaurant with hammocks and beanbag chairs for several hours before making the return trip. I ate calamari.

I conned ya, Konya!

2008-05-25T02:01:00.001-08:00

I had a long day yesterday, my friends. Shall I tell you about it? OK.

I woke up AGAIN at 5 am and actually got to fly in the hot air balloon. I was thinking the whole time while they were filling it up and then heating it up, "How does this work? Why does this work? Does this work?" Although I had to share the occasion with more becamera'd bus people, everyone was quiet once we were aloft, so intent were they on their viewfinders. Next to me in the basket were an Indian couple. Remember them because they appear later in my story. The trip seemed to last more than an hour, but I wasn't keeping track because I wanted to enjoy the flight (during which I was wondering what it would be like to jump out at various elevations). We soared over the valley in which Goreme sprawls, up the canyon wall, and then over another valley with tall stone structures with little stone hats, which is why it is known locally as Phallus Valley (or Fairy Land, perhaps, but what's the difference?). When we landed, we got our traditional glass of cheap champagne and a certificate that said something like, "Congratulations. You have enough money to take vacations in Turkey and go hot air ballooning. You are a nob." Now I have to carry that around, too.

Next step: three hour bus to Konya, a city famous for being religiously conservative (just screams PARTY! doesn't it?). Konya was once a Turkish capital, maybe for the Seljuks, and there are still some old buildings from that period and more than one mosque (though I didn't feel the need to visit more than one). The only reason I went to Konya was to visit Çatal Höyük, a 9000 year old neolithic city that looks much more impressive in my Encyclopedia of Mysterious Places than it does in real life. In the picture, there are hundreds of plastered mud brick houses clustered against one another with ladders connecting the roofs at different levels. In real life, it's an excavation trench with a giant steel roof. Getting there was a bit of an ordeal. Once I arrived in Konya, I had to take a minibus to the other side of Konya and from there another regular bus to a city called Çumra, 14 km away from the ruins. According to my Lonely Planet, there is no onward transportation to the site, but it's possible to hire taxis for 14 euros return. Now I'm not exactly sure what the euro is worth today, but I know it's a hell of a lot more than the dollar, so 14 euros might as well be a hundred dollars, because there was no way I was going *anywhere* in a taxi for that much money. So off I went down the untrafficked road, in the hot sun, without sunblock, thumb out. After an hour, I started to question my wisdom, though the heat made me dizzy enough that I wasn't too self-critical. Finally, a car did stop and the nice, nice man took me the rest of the way. And then I wondered whether or not I should be disappointed. Well, at least it was free to get in, and there was a cool reconstruction of a Neolithic mud brick house next to the site museum. And the adventure there was something to write about? I even convinced the museum guard to make tea, and we sat drinking it for quite some time until three people arrived in a private car. Turning up my charm to MAXIMUM POTENTIAL, I smiled my way up to the driver and asked if I could have a ride back to Konya. The driver consulted with his passengers, and it was alright. Alright!

Back in Konya, I was dropped at the Mevlana Museum, the former lodge of the whirling dervishes. Inside, the founder of the order, the famous poet Rumi (everyone has a copy of his works, even me; nobody has read it, including me), is interred. I noticed quite a few people praying to his tomb, and I wanted to point out to them, having recently finished reading the Quran, that they aren't supposed to be doing that. They also have a small box containing the prophet Mohammed's beard. Believe it? I don't! But people were going so far as to kiss that one! Muslims! You aren't supposed to idol worship! Sigh. Allah is right: they will never learn. To hell with them all. In the evening, I walked way over to the Kultur Center to buy tickets for the whirling dervish show. Here is the conversation I had with the guards:

Me: I would like to buy tickets.

Guard: No tickets.

Me: Is it sold out?

Guard: No tickets.

Me: Where can I buy tickets?

Guard: No, no ticket.

Me: No ticket? Do I buy it later?

Guard: No. No ticket. No money.

Me: No money?

Guard: Mo money.

Me: Really?

Guard: Yes.

Me: It's free?

Guard: Yes.

Me: Really?

Guard: Yes.

Me: Really?

Guard: Yes.

Me: But this is Turkey. You have to pay to piss here. Really no money?

Guard: No money.

Me: Really?

Guard: Yes.

So I walked all the way back and ate a kebab. And then walked all the way back again for the show. Which was so boring! Lonely Planet, which I am getting ready to plan suicide attacks against, says it's the most amazing sight in Turkey or something and much better than the one in Egypt which I also so and can't remember. But this one was pretty boring, actually, and I almost fell asleep like my dad always does during performances, so I am becoming like him already. I thought they were going to spin really, really fast, but they just sort of turned around and around slowly. And then it ended too late for me to get a minibus back to the bus station, so, finally getting screwed, I had to take a taxi. But I managed to do everything else for just about no money, so I feel satisfied.

I had to get back to the bus station, because I had yet another night bus (an "express" service) to, finally, İstanbul (note the dotted capital I). What is with Turkish buses? They turn on the A/C at the beginning of the ride, turn it off halfway through--so everyone starts sweating like animals because there's no air circulation--and then turn it on again just before you arrive so the sweat has the chance to dry and make you feel clammy and disgusting. Must be to save fuel while still pretending to provide comfort.

Anyway, I arrived in İstanbul at around 7:30 am, took a service bus to the Asian ferry terminal, ferried over to Europe, and met up with Selin, the friend of Seda from Ankara, with whom I am staying here, because I can't afford hotels in Europe. Characteristically, for this trip anyway, I got very little else accomplished today. I went down to the tourist section of town (=the old town, and I wonder how I feel about all the old parts of old towns becoming tourist traps in the modern world--what's the point? Are we being exploited or educated?) to look for my friends Michael and Jessica, who happen to be here right now. I missed them, so instead I sat down to drink some Turkish coffee when who should walk by but that Indian couple from the hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia! I hadn't even spoken to them there, but they recognized me and sat down. Naturally, I was my usual charming self, and we had a nice chat, short because they had a bus to catch to the airport, and the husband even paid for my coffee behind my back! What am I doing right to be catching such good favor these days? It makes me paranoid.

Cappadocia

2008-05-23T09:25:00.002-08:00

Where was I?

Right. Ankara. I ended up lazing around Ankara for half the day following my trip back in time to the Mighty Ancient Hittite Civilization Of Which You Should Have Heard (glad Kajori has, at least). Then I took a bus to Cappadocia, a region of Turkey famed for its fame. Arriving at the town of Goreme at 11:30 pm, I had to bang down the door of a hotel (good grief, I've been reduced to *paying* for accommodation) in order to get a cheap dorm bed. According to Lonely Planet, Goreme is "magical". F*ck you, Lonely Planet. Goreme is yet another international tourist town stuffed with over-priced, identical restaurants, annoying carpet salesmen, and busloads of middle-aged sightseers I want to ethnic-cleanse.

OK, I'm just trying to be funny. It's not all bad. The region is indeed gorgeous, and I guess you should Google Image search "Cappadocia" to see some photos (I even took a few) of the weird limestone/volcanic ash rock formations. These things, in all sorts of smooth, tapering shapes and a variety of stony colors, seem to sprout out of the ground everywhere. There are whole canyons of them, in fact, and some of them are large enough that the Byzantines carved churches into them a thousand years ago which today you can visit by paying too much money for tickets. Lots of buildings around here are carved into rock formations, including my hotel. It reminds me a bit of Coober Pedy, Australia (for the living underground), a bit of Meteora, Greece (for all the Byzantine churches in weird rock formations), and a bit of Petra, Jordan (for the colorful canyons and building facades).

On my first day in Cappadocia, I went up to the Goreme Open Air Museum and paid too much to see a bunch of churches that I ended up deciding I did not care a rat's ass about (that's an American expression that means I could't give a flying f*ck). Outside the museum, though, are squares upon square kilometers (Kajori, is that proper usage?) of wonderful canyons that you can explore for free (or, if you're an idiot, by paying for a guide). They are deserted, spectacular, and change colors as the light changes throughout the day. I had to hurry through the Rose Canyon, though, because I had booked a sunset tour to the Rose Canyon for that afternoon. Because I'm an idiot. You see, I just went wandering and had no idea I was in the Rose Canyon, but the awful truth of what I'd done dawned on me when the tour guide kept walking past rock formations I had fond memories of from only a few hours before. My hotel told me they were too far away to walk to. Whatever. Why do I keep listening to these people? Hmm. I guess I met some cool and interesting people that I wouldn't have otherwise, but, given the choice, I'd rather have my $9.75 back.

Day two involved barely waking up in time despite my alarm not going off at 5:00 am for a hot air balloon trip (my first) above the weird rock formationed canyons. When the light streaming into the room alerted me to my lateness, I jumped out of bed, jabbed my contacts into my eyes, quickly packed, chucked my bag into reception, boarded the minibus to the launch site, and then came right back after high winds cancelled our trip. So I'm trying again tomorrow morning (and thus will be wrapping this screed up soon). Afterward, I bus-bus-bus-bussed (that's four) it over to the Ihlara Valley, which is a valley. Most tourists come to look at the churches, hike a few kilometers, eat some fish, and then take off. I went (with the French woman I met in Ankara who I miraculously bumped into en route to the valley) down into the valley, looked at a few churches in order to confirm my not-giving-a-rat's-assedness, walked to the midpoint, ate some fish ("that's the cheapest restaurant over there," said a Turkish man, pointing for me), and continued walking, sans tourists, through the best part of the valley: a long stretch of greenery surrounded by steep, boulder-strewn inclines, olive trees on either side of the bubbling brook, satyrs lurking among them, no doubt. It was Arcadian! Except in Turkey! So, Turko-Arcadian.

At the end of the valley (which took us about 3-4 hours to hike leisurely, not the 7-8 which the obviously unresearched first-hand Lonely Planet estimates) are a bunch of conical rock formations which appeared in one of the Star Wars movies. This was, naturally, very exciting for me, and I'm going to watch all of them again when I go home, hopefully in front of people, so when the rock formations appear, I can jump up, exultantly, and shout egomaniacally, "I was there!" (on Tatooine?). More churches. Yawn. Then, at the very end of the valley and back on the main road, was another church, but this one was really big, so I was happy to climb to the top. Actually, it was a whole monastery complex, and I wanted to risk my life for a cool photo of myself by mounting one of the more dangerous-looking towers, but decided in the end that preserving the integrity of the monument was more important than a cool photo (and that's my story!).

Since we missed the last bus back to anywhere (at 3:30 pm!), we had to bribe a tour bus driver to take us back. And so he did. Then I practiced Japanese with the hotel workers, made myself peanut butter and rose jelly sandwiches, drank miso soup, took a shower, had my moustache trimmed, and then found an Internet cafe. End.

Keyboard Corollary

2008-05-21T06:35:00.002-08:00

I figured out how to change the keyboard layout to English, so I won't need to comically whinge about this anymore.

Also, I failed to mention that I failed to get permission to visit either South Ossetia or Abkhazia, the Georgian breakaway regions. The borders are closed or they're fighting a war or something. Idiots. Some other time I'll have to visit the land of the Golden Fleece, though I think Jason and the Argonauts at least founded the city of Ljubliana, Slovenia, which I *am* going to pass through.

Off to Cappadocia now.

Here there be Hittites!

2008-05-20T23:32:00.003-08:00

Yesterday, I fulfılled a lıfelong dream by vısıtıng Hattuşa, the ancıent capıtal of the Bronze Age Hıttıte kıngdom. You do know who the Hıttıes are, don't you? DON'T YOU? OK, I wıll spare you a tedıous descrıptıon: the Hıttıtes were an Indo-European people that flourıshed ın central Antatolıa ın the mıddle of the second mıllenıum B.C. They conquered an enormous area and even challenged the Egyptıans (you know them), ultımately sıgnıng wıth them the Treaty of Kadesh, the fırst ınternatıonal treaty for whıch there ıs evıdence, copıes of whıch ın both languages stıll exıst. They are also consıdered the fırst cıvılızatıon to have used ıron to a great extent and not just for nose pıercıngs.

Gettıng to Hattuşa was a bıt trıcky, and I planned ıt as a day trıp. From Ankara, I had to take a bus for 3 hours to a town called Sungurlu. From there, I had to waıt around for about an hour untıl a mınıbus up to the town of Boğazkale (the ğ ıs sılent) fılled up enough to depart. At Boğazkale, I was predıctably told by a taxı drıver that ıt would be ımpossıble for me to vısıt the ruıns on foot because the loop road that traverses the sıte ıs 6 km (!) long. Don't these people yet know wıth whom they are dealıng? Sıgh. I certaınly dıd go on foot, and I'm glad I dıd because the sıte (got ın free wıth student ID!) was vırtually empty and sıtuated ın a lovely bıt of countrysıde. Naturally, the cıty occupıed a hıgh place, so hıkıng around ıt and enjoyıng the vıews were real treats. Not much ın the way of ruıns remaıns, however, but that ıs typıcal for Bronze Age sıtes. It ısn't the Roman Forum. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The scenery was excıtıng--lots of rocky precıpıces, green valleys, red-roofed Turkısh vıllages ın the dıstance. At one poınt, I saw some preserved Luwıan hıeroglyphıcs. I thınk that was my fırst brush wıth Luwıan outsıde of lınguıstıcs books. I'm stıll not exactly sure what the hell ıt ıs (or what ıt was doıng there--wouldn't Hıttıtes have spoken Hıttıte?). I even got a chance to characterıstıcally rısk my lıfe by short-cuttıng from the maın cıty up to some further-afıeld cave temples wıth more ınscrıptıons (whıch sucked). Thıs ınvolved clımbıng down a steep rock wall and almost dyıng. I dıd far more dangerous thıngs ın Greece ın 2003, though, so don't be too concerned for my apparent lack of sense of self-preservatıon. I returned to town wıth tıme enough for a leısurely meal (eat ıt, taxı man!) before repeatıng my mornıng journey ın reverse. A typıcal day on the road for me ın every way. I'm not sure how many other people consıder somethıng 3 1/2 hours away a day trıp destınatıon. But I do. Haıl Suppiluliuma, Kıng of the Hıttıtes! Ravısher of Foes! Lord of all Creatıon!

The Other Land of the Rising Sun

2008-05-20T23:11:00.002-08:00

I gıve up on the dotless ı sıtuatıon. Please deal wıth ıt as I must.

Anatolıa: the land of the rısıng sun, to the Greeks. They never heard of Japan. And I place I have long longed to vısıt. But fırst thıngs fırst: my escape from Georgıa. Fınally motıvatıng myself to get the hell out of FormerSSRLand, I spent a total of 24 hours on transportatıon ın order to make a bold stab ınto Turkey. Thıs consısted of 6 hours on a mashrutka to the Black Sea resort town of Batumı (my fırst sıght of the Black Sea was emotıonal); walkıng across the border on foot (chang-chıng $20 stıcker stamp stamp); takıng another mınıbus to a town called Hopa near the border; and fınally jumpıng onto a 15 hour nıght bus (seats not so reclınable) to Ankara. Really, I wasn't sure where I was goıng to end up that day, but a bus to Ankara was avaılable, so to Ankara I went. Progess ıs progress, after all. En route to Ankara, I suddenly realızed I mıght actually have to pay for accomodatıon sınce my couchsurfıng sıtuatıon fell through. So at a larger bus statıon, I debarked and quıckly took advantage of an Internet cafe to procure an emergency host: Xavıer from France, lıvıng wıth hıs co-couchsurfer gırlfrıend, Seda. I dashed off emaıls to hım (and a few other people!), and when I checked ın agaın at the gıant Ankara otogar, Xavıer had replıed and was able to take me ın. My last mınute fıendısh plan had worked! Truly, I fear none but the travel gods. Thıs tıme they gaveth.

I was sharıng Xavıer/Seda's lıvıng room wıth another traveler, a French woman from Couchsurfıng's rıval sıte, Hospıtalıty Club. She and he and I spent the day at the wonderful Museum of Anatolıan Cıvılızatıons, whıch I've serıously been wantıng to see for a long tıme, and the Ataturk mausoleum/monument/museum. The Turks love thıs guy, and I had unwıttıngly arrıved ın theır capıtal cıty on May 19, an ımportant, Ataturk-related natıonal holıday. Gıant portraıts of the father of the modern Turkısh natıon were hung from all the largest buıldıngs, and Turkısh crescent moon and star flags were (stıll are) everywhere. Whıle we were ınsıde the mauseoleum buıldıng, a gıant crowd of Turks bearıng an enormous flag came ın and sang the natıonal anthem. And you Amerıcans thınk YOU are patrıotıc?? George Washıngton's entombed ın hıs garden at Mt. Vernon! I thınk I threw quarters at hıs grave when I was a chıld (for good luck? because Washıngton was deıfıed upon hıs death?). The Ataturk museum was not so ınterestıng for me because I'm not a Turk and came mostly for the pre-Turkısh ruıns.

It seems the only thıng to eat ın Turkey ıs kebab.

Keyboard Hell

2008-05-20T10:24:00.002-08:00

A new post is coming, but dealing with Turkish keyboards is really tedious because of the ı's, ö's, ç's, ğ's, ü's, ş's, etc. Nothing ıs where ıts supposed to be! Even that lıttle sequence took me 20 mınutes to ınput! So be patıentççç I need to clear a block of tıme for thıs so my posts dont end up lookıng lıke ıllıterate Monty Pythön ımıtatıons. The dotless ı ıs annoyıng me the most. iiiiiiiiiııııııı

Gaijin Times

2008-05-15T22:10:00.003-08:00

Like a depressed man who has finally decided to commit suicide, I am today quite happy and relieved that I have committed to leave Tbilisi tomorrow. Staying in one place for too long, however much I am enjoying it, makes me nervous. It is time to move on. To make up for my recent lack of succulent and satisfying posts, I will offer on this occasion a brief recount of my year in Japan. Naturally, it is going to be impossible for me to go into much detail, but I will do my best, through tortured and elliptical language, to give you some sense of that strange place and the strange life I led there. As always, I apologize in advance--in particular to my beloved Japanese readers--for being the horribly tactless and offensive person that I am. Be assured, yuujin-san, your country will always have a special place in my heart, but, for the sake of cheap laughs, I cannot forbear to gibe, jeer, and jest.

I blasted off from planet Earth on July 29, 2006, bound for a strange, new world, where people look different, behave in the most peculiar way, eat food which is often bizarre and disgusting, and whose heavily-accented English is hard to understand: Minnesota. Eager to escape this non-descript nowhere the natives call "the midwest" (does this word describe anything?), I and my group of fellow future English teachers (sorry, "teachers") hurriedly boarded a connecting shuttle to an even more remote, more exotic place: Nihon, or Nippon, or, to you and I, Ja-pan. At the arrival facility in Ja-pan, we were, in quite every way exhausting the sense of the word, ushered from our flight craft, through immigration ("Nihon de, dono gurai tomaru tsumori desu ka?" "What?"), through customs, through baggage claim (the airline lost mine), through long, tidy and quiet corridors lined with smiling, identically T-shirted white people showing us the way (like something out of the Albert Brooks movie, "Defending Your Life"), and onto one of a long line of waiting mega-personnel transport vehicles. And off to a five-star hoteru we went.

At the hoteru, which is located steps away from the heart of downtown Tokyo's gay district, we were receptioned, feted, and congratulated for being the chosen few thousand to have been accepted (bam! perfect passive participle in the house!) into the prestigious (!) JET Programme. "JET" stands for "Just Entertain us, Thanks." The keynote address is a good example of every speech I heard from a Japanese official the whole time I was there, and went something like this:

"Hello. I don't speak English well (ha ha). You are all great. Ja-pan is great, too. Let's all be great together. Don't forget that your country and Ja-pan are very different, but we don't care what you do, so don't worry about fucking up. Now, please drink something."

The smart JETs evacuated the hoteru as soon as possible, going off to explore the city. Dumbly, and although my friend Ryoko (see Cambodia post) awesomely met me the first night, I stuck around the rest of the time to attend the mandatory (HO HO!) orientation sessions run by current JETs who had not yet become (bam! pluperfect tense!) cynical and listless. The quality of these sessions ran the gamut from pointless and absurd through to suicide-inducing waste of time, though I did find "Dating in Ja-pan" to be provocative and fascinating (also highly attended, as you can imagine). Don't take my supercilious condescension too seriously, though. I had just come out of an M.A. program in English literature, where, if it taught me anything about the enduring virtues of the Western humanist tradition, I at least learned to adopt an unattractive but quite self-satisfying sense of overweening superiority toward everyone and everything around me. By the way, if you want to strike fear into the heart of any Japanese student of English, ask them to spell the words "supercilious" and "condescension."

You must excuse the detail into which I am going (never end a clause or sentence with a preposition!) about the first few days of my annus incredibilus in Ja-pan. You see, though these events remain vivid in my memory, most of the rest of the time is a blur of: an endless parade of boring days at school with nothing to do; occasional "business trips" to compare shock-notes with fellow JETs (your teacher did what?? your student ate what?? your Japanese girlfriend/boyfriend put her/his fingers where??); nights out drinking in the local izakaya, in Tokyo, with colleagues, wherever; & cetera.

No, there was really so much more to it than that. I kid, I kid. Really. In my first week, the JETs in my prefecture, Ibaraki (north of Tokyo, jokingly referred to, along with Chiba prefecture, as "Chibaraki" by the cool, countryside-disdaining Tokyoites), were invited to participate in a bank-sponsored parade through the humidity-drenched streets of downtown Mito, Ibaraki's tiny little capital (aside: I love Mito). This was the Mito Komoun festival, a celebration of the city's founder and popular TV drama character. We were taught the dance procedure very quickly, and so none of us mastered it (except the Japanese bank employees, who all appeared to be professionals at this sort of thing). It didn't matter, though, because a booze-car followed us the whole way down Mito's long central boulevard and we fueled up during each interlude. When I found out this dancing routine was actually a competition, my American spirit fired up, and I demanded that my fellow drunken JETs help me to construct a human pyramid in order to wow the judges. Naturally, they agreed to this ridiculous request, and up they piled. For the top, I asked (by gesturing) a petite Japanese girl (that's redundant, I suppose) if she'd like to volunteer for the job. Once she figured out what I was talking about (I tried not to use the word "mount"), I never saw such an enthusiastically positive response. I did this twice. I never saw any judges or found out if we "won," but I ended up making some Japanese friends and did my part to demonstrate to the Japanese what morons foreigners are, so I counted it as a personal victory, at least.

That was August. The rest of the month, I had no work to do, because school was out for summer. Most days, I came in for an hour or two, bowed to everyone, and went home to sweat. Japan is really hot in the summer. I never thought it could be hotter than any of the other hot places I've been, but it really is the most uncomfortably hot place I've ever been. The Japanese never tire of pointing this out.

In September, I finally got the chance to teach. For the entire month, this consisted in a "self-introduction" lesson in which I told each of about 15 classes (over and over I had to do this) about my boring life. I tried spicing things up with a Powerpoint presentation featuring the famous manga character Doraemon and Darth Vader. Later, I realized that they probably understood only about 5% of what I said. I smiled as much as possible. In September, the school also took me to Tokyo Disneyland. I have to admit, my friends, I was ALL OVER THAT.

In October, the realities of my new job began to, as they say, dawn on me. The school I was teaching at, Hitachiota Daiichi Senior High School, was fairly high level, which means the students spend most of their time preparing for university entrance exams, which means their primary English instruction (which I cannot provide) is in grammar (taught in Japanese, by the way), which means my teachers had often to cancel my "conversation" classes, which means I often, sometimes for weeks or months at a time, had nothing to do except wander the dusty halls causing havoc wherever I could. I tried not to be too critical about Japanese culture while I was there (smarmy sarcasm notwithstanding), but I do have a special disdain for the way English, at least, is taught. In many ways, I respect the Japanese style of education. For Japanese arts like calligraphy, pottery, archery, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, martial arts, etc. (the list goes on indefinitely), I find the slow, detail-oriented, perfectionism-over-time, respect the teacher approach appropriate. But in the case of foreign language study, I think it doesn't work. Teaching English as a series of patterns to memorize and repeat is ineffective and stultifying.

This was not the teachers' fault. They were just doing their job and usually regretted not being able to "team-teach" with me or teach in more productive and innovative ways (though I am hardly an expert in such things). In fact, I loved my colleagues. They were all easy-going, approachable, and kind. My then-supervisor, Takahashi-sensei, bent over backwards to accomodate my every request (and I tried to make as few as possible, though living in a country where you are functionally illiterate when you are used to being sophisticatedly over-literate is a difficult transition to make). He even invited me over for dinner. Kozawa-sensei, who is probably reading this, also invited me over for dinner with his family, and I got to experience one of those funny moments when you suddenly meet someone's twin brother when you didn't know he had one. Kusachi-sensei taught me the ins and outs of the Japanese game "Go", which I love, though he kicked my ass every time. Go is more complicated than Chess--there are more possible arrangements of pieces on a 13x13 Go board, apparently, than there are stars in the universe (I think Chess only goes as far as the galaxy or something). That's complicated! Seki-sensei took me hiking. Morita-sensei took me out drinking and helped me (unintentionally) perfect my karaoke-avoidance techniques. Ouchi-sensei and I together coached a student for an English speech contest, and I am proud to say she hasn't given up participating--a brave attitude for the typically shy Japanese! Outside of the English department, Kikuchi-sensei provided a refuge for me in the sick bay, where she served me tea and sweets and helped me learn Japanese. She also introduced me to Tomoko-sensei, my tea ceremony instructor (more on that later). Miyamoto-sensei, though she didn't speak English, eventually acquiesced to my persevering desire to learn shodo, Japanese calligraphy. I just kept showing up, each time able to converse in Japanese a little bit more. Now, she's like a second (or third, or fourth at this point) mother to me. Namekawa-sensei, the art teacher, had unlimited patience for me, though she too spoke little English, and we ended up having some of the most interesting and beautiful conversations about art and life. I often tell people about how difficult it is to break down personal barriers in Japan and really engage people there. I like to think I took some steps in this direction, though, and that I might have been somewhat more successful than most. Don't give up, prospective Japanophiles! Ja-pan is probably not what you think, but it's not worth giving up on, either. You just have to learn to be as patient as them. Not so easy for a Westerner, perhaps, much less an American, much less a New Jerseyan.

I have gotten ahead of myself, describing events and relationships that occurred over time or took time to develop. So back to the chronology: in November, I did nothing at school but started attending Urasenke tea ceremony classes regularly for about five hours every Saturday afternoon. This may sound boring to most of you, but I found it to be a fascinating, if subtle, way to gain insight into the "mysterious Japanese mind" (in quotes, because I try not to be a reverse-racist). I won't go into too much detail, because this post is already getting long enough, but I learned to appreciate the close attention you pay to your immediate situation and circumstances during a tea ceremony and also the art's core values: purity, harmony, tranquility, respect. Couldn't we all use a little more of that in our lives? See, I can be as saccharine as I can be sarcastic. I attended this class loyally, three times a month until I left Ja-pan the following July. Tomoko-sensei, who spoke English (another mother-figure in the end), was a wonderful teacher and even invited me along to several (expensive!) tea events, where I got to see the real thing and hundreds of kimono-clad women. Although I could not afford to pay for it at the time, I am now technically certified in tea ceremony by the Urasenke Foundation. Sugoine?

In December, I started attending a free Japanese class in Mito on Saturday mornings before tea, though I was already staving off countryside-induced boredom by attending another free class in my own town, Hitachiota, on Thursday evenings. Wonderful teachers and new friends found in both!

At the end of December, my school closed for a New Year's break (like Christmas in the West), and I took off for South Korea with my friend Neil. From Tokyo, we ripped across Honshu by bullet train to Fukuoka and, the next day, took a ferry to Pusan--this was the sort of interesting adventure I like. On board the ferry, I saw a really cool Korean film about an emperor and a circus clown performer guy he falls in love with or something. Touching. Later, I visited the traditional folk village theme park where it was film, much to my delight. Getting out of Japan at this point was like escaping a bubble, to be honest. As sentimental as I can be about my adopted country number four, sometimes it drove me insane. Korea seemed more, ah, normal. Maybe more Western? I don't know. But I loved the hell out of it. First, it was MUCH cheaper than Japan, where I basically denied myself all pleasures so I could be sitting here in Tbilisi, Georgia today writing this. The food was fantastic, I liked the people, the World Heritage temples and fortresses in wooded areas were just as I expected and enjoy, and Seoul turned out to be a marvelous place, too, though some may disparage it as just another giant Asian megacity. Whatever, the vegetarian Buddhist temple food is outstanding, the handicrafts are affordable, and I had a great time attending their raucous New Year's Eve celebration (by contrast, in Tokyo, I heard the affair is usually quite underwhelming--though I maintain a healthy regard for Japanese reserve, I prefer to be whelmed, at least on that day, thank you very much). I drank green tea latte after green tea latte, too. Oh, yum. Neil and I also did a temple stay in the center of the country, which was sort of OK, but would no doubt have been more interesting if we'd stayed longer (or somewhere else, to be honest--just very quiet at that time). We also found a number of hot baths, naturally. Those who love me know I love those. Most interestingly, we visited, on a USO-sponsored tour, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. At a village called Panmunjeom (I actually remembered how to spell that without looking it up!), the two sides have built "welcome centers" just across the border from one another (a few hundred feet) that constantly eye one another unwelcomingly. A few low buildings, where negotiations often fail to get anywhere, are built across the line itself, and our group was allowed inside. Technically, I have been in North Korea, because I crossed the line inside the building. Not sure if that really counts for much. Near Panmunjeom are both a North and South Korean village. The South Korean village, not technically part of South Korea, I guess, is a real village that receives massive subsidies from the South Korean government. I think most of its inhabitants live on this largesse in Seoul, only spending the requisite 10 days a year actually in their village homes. The North Korean village, on the other hand, is a total fake. The side facing South Korea is done up to make the North look prosperous and happy. But it's really a ghost town with nothing more than a few forced laborers forced to look unforced and a loudspeaker that used to loudly broadcast propaganda across the border. The South had one of these, too, so they amicably decided (surprisingly) just to turn them both off. The flag-pole competition is not over, however, both sides continually upping the ante; North Korea is currently winning, with the largest flagpole in the world topped by the largest flag--so big and heavy, there's hardly ever enough wind to stir it (luckily, there was when I visited). All of this you view from a kind of amphitheatre at the US Army base. It's very weird and maybe the last place of its weird kind in the world. The soldiers who gave the tour were very funny, too, making numerous witty remarks about the "glorious society" on the other side. Ha ha!

In January, I don't remember doing much. Maybe I taught. I did eventually produce dozens of so-cool (so-called) lesson plans, but I only got to deploy them sporadically. I think I started my Tuesday night pottery lessons at this time, though, adding yet another hobby to my growing and groaning list. Well, I sucked at it, but the teacher was happy to have me there, and I eventually dragged my English neighbor, Catriona, along, too. Best part: he didn't charge us! I love the special treatment foreigners get in Ja-pan. Most of the time. Thanks, Maki, for bringing me there, and thanks Nakagawa-sensei for putting up with us! You know, he never did understand this bizarre concept known as "vegetarianism." I believe Catriona is still trying to explain.

February was still cold. Did I mention that Ja-pan is as cold in the winter as it is hot in the summer? And they don't heat their buildings. Or they use kerosene, like in the 19th century, or it's expensive. To save money, I bought a cheap electric blanket and wrapped myself in it from November to May. Emma, if you're reading this, don't worry: I washed it before I left, though it may still be full of residue of emotional essence wrought by months of pining and frustration, from various causes, that you will no doubt understand. Also started helping out random other Japanese people I met with their English. Anything to pass the time of day, and it gave me an excuse to visit my favorite "English" tea room in Mito, where I was a beloved regular customer.

In March, it was cherry blossom time, and I have to say, though I am a Western male who could normally give a shit about flowers, I was stunned by how beautiful they indeed turned out to be--and ubiquitous. Toward the end of March, during another school break, I finally took a long trip down to Kinki (hee hee) to see Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Himeji. En route, I stopped at Nagoya to visit my Aikido sensei, who was sick, but met and stayed with Joe, one of his resident American students. Joe is now my best friend, and even though I am filled with a spirit of peace after countless hours of martial training, tea ceremony, and Buddhist reflections, I'll kick any of your asses if you say a thing against him. In Kyoto, I stayed at a hotel called the "Kyoto Cheapest Hotel." As advertised, I only paid around $10 a night for a tatami-mat bunk bed (sleeping bag required) in an open room. Fine with me: how about $5 for a spot on the laundry room floor? I can't describe, in this already overlong post, the wonders of Kyoto, but it's easily the most beautiful city in Ja-pan, though it's easy to be a beautiful city in Ja-pan, because most of them aren't so beautiful (we sort of bombed them all, but not Kyoto, which maintains its traditional charms). Kyoto is a city of temples which all cost $5 to enter, and though I was grouchy about having to pay so much so often, I couldn't say that any one of them wasn't worth the price of admission: they are all lovely, lovely in ways that defy easy description, since I have no room to detail all their details. I liked best the moss gardens and some of the raked-stone Zen gardens. I also enjoyed the famous "Philosopher's Walk", waking up really early every day with a tatami-induced sore-back, encouraging me to get out into the quiet mist of a Kyoto morning, walking from downtown Kyoto to the top of Mount Hiei (famous for its famous monastery (Engakuji?) of famous monks) and back, etc. etc. etc. I just can't do it! I can't tell you about everything I did there without boring you with lists! OK, quickly, I visited Osaka for an evening, Himeji for a day to see the really-awesome, totally-worth it "White Egret" castle and nearby mountain monastery (Engyouji?) where part of Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai" was filmed, the ancient capital of Nara with its largest-oldest-wooden-buildings-in-the-world temples, famous forest, a sake factory, and, uh, sacred deer (free guided tour by two university students), and Uji, the green tea city (all varieties, every kind of food product made from it, my idea of heaven). I stopped at Nagoya again on the way back, but still no Sensei. Got really drink with Joe. While I was in Kyoto, the cherry blossoms appeared, and I managed to follow the "front" back north to Hitachiota, stopping in several places along the way and enjoying them for about two weeks altogether (normally they last up to five days max in most places). And, in front of my school, there is a massive cherry blossom tree that was in full bloom when I got back. Now you understand, perhaps, why they are deliberately planted everywhere in the country. The Japanese love celebrating the ephemerality of all things in life represented by the beautiful but short-lived cherry blossoms. And drinking under them. Me, too.

Still there? In April, the new school year began. I don't think I did much. Other activities as usual.

In May, I turned 29, and I don't even remember what I did to celebrate, which means I probably paid a visit to the old woman in my town who adopts all foreigners living there and allows them to drop in whenever they want for food and drinking with half the neighborhood. If I didn't do this then, I certainly did it more than once during the year. Someday, I'm really going to nail Japanese, so when I go back, I'll actually be able to have a conversation with her that entails more than just grunting attempts at exchanging good will, enough at the time, I suppose.

In June, I probably taught more than average or went to watch the archery club after school a bunch. I certainly didn't travel any more. I was trying desperately to save money for this year's trip, and I'd even gotten rid of my car, since keeping it would have entailed paying a multiple thousand dollar inspection fee. Ja-pan is expensive!

In July, it finally got hot enough that I stopped going to my local onsen every Friday, which I had long since adopted as my weekly attempt to avoid remembering that where I was, there was nothing to do on Friday night. Probably, I did some other stuff, too.

July was the end of the school year and the end of my year in Ja-pan. I gave a speech, received bunches of flowers, had multiple going away parties, received more bunches of flowers, and felt both sad to be leaving and excited to be embarking on my next adventure. I can't say the job was terribly satisfying, as I'm sure my colleagues will understand, but I did have an enriching experience I will never regret in the land of the rising sun. I intend to return as soon as I am able, and I tend not to return to countries I've already visited. But I want to visit my friends, some of the best, most sincere friends I've ever made, and I want to see more of the country I couldn't afford to travel around much while I was there, and that 88 temple pilgrimage on Shikoku island has my name all over it. In more than one way, my heart will always remain, in part, in Ja-pan.

I hope I didn't leave out anything, or anyone, important. That should hold y'all for awhile, anyway.

Сталин my hero

2008-05-15T06:05:00.002-08:00

Hold onto your miters, everyone, but I actually went somewhere today and did something. You're going to like this, really. I went to Josef Stalin's birthplace! You'd think they'd have long since plowed over such an ignominious place and sowed the ground with salt. But if you thought so, you'd be so wrong. In Georgia, where he was born, Stalin is a national hero! What?! I guess there aren't too many heroes coming out of the Caucasus, so they take what they can get--even Stalin.

I woke early and caught the minibus to Gori, the town in question, about an hour from Tbilisi through stunning green countryside, backdropped by white-capped mountains. Lovely. In the center of the town is a Stalin memorial park, on one side of which is Stalin Street. You need a very subtle sense of humor to find such things amusing. There was once a village here, but the Communists (in, ahem, the 1930s) bulldozed every building except the Chairman's modest, Lincoln-esque hovel (love the story--mother a seamstress, father a shoemaker, lived in one room). Next to that, they built a less modest museum to chronicle the life of the U.S.S.R.'s greatest leader. Before going inside, I had my photo taken with some local youths who love Stalin next to his bust. Then I found out it was going to cost me 10 lari ($6.66) to enter--and that's the student price. Even the ticket lady lamented about how expensive it is. The Verdi opera last night, and it was enchanting, only cost about $3.25 for the best seats. Well, I wasn't going to miss this. And I still bought a Stalin keychain, too. All the signage is in Georgian (a bunch of squiggly things) and Russian (backwards letters, numbers, etc.) so I was in luck when a group of French tourists (!) came along with a guide for an English language (!) tour. The museum guide was a lovely young Georgian college student who talked way too fast even for me, so we relied on this other Georgian guy to re-translate. At one point, the (museum) guide pointed to a photo of Stalin casting a ballot and remarked, "This is Stalin electing himself." My composure-reflexes not quick enough to block the signal, I burst out laughing. I thought she meant to say, "This is Stalin voting for himself," but didn't realize the irony. I tried to explain, but she got confused, so then I wasn't sure if she didn't mean what she said!

After the tour, which included a peek inside the birth house and Stalin's private railcar, me and the Israeli, Frenchman, and Michigan-based Zionist activist I ended up with wandered over to the main square. There, we were delighted by what must be the last remaining colossus of Stalin left in the world. More photos, of course. Then we took a taxi to a famous house-cave city I never heard of, but which was fairly impressive and, as usual, sited in spectacular Caucasian scenery. The Lonely Planet-equipped Israeli informed us that the site dates back to 1000 B.C. Wow. Then we went back to Tbilisi, where I bought greens and tomatos at a market because I'm sick of eating fried bread and cheese for every meal, dammit. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a salad.

Georgia, the prison state

2008-05-14T01:28:00.002-08:00

OK, Georgia is not a prison, but I can't get out. It's not border control problems or travel restrictions. Mostly, it's laziness, probably induced by Couchsurfing. It's hard to give up free accomodation in a comfortable environment. Plus, the weather here only just started to get good, so now I'm outside a bit more instead of running from viaduct to viaduct and drinking (even clubbing, god help me) at night. Last night, I vowed not to drink again. I failed. Tonight, I am going to try and see Verdi's Requiem, which is on at the opera house here. If it's sold out, I guess I'll just go to a bar.

Georgia on my mind

2008-05-11T22:28:00.002-08:00

Did you Americans know that, in addition to the state of Georgia, there is a country called Georgia? Does anyone know that? Crossing over from Yerevan several days ago, I passed to the difficult to spell and pronounce capital city of Tbilisi on one of the worst international "highways" I've ever seen. There were few people on the bus, and I found it very hard to change Armenian "dram" for Georgian "lari" once in the city, so I reckon there isn't much intercourse between the two countries, so to speak. But the Georgians noticeably loosened up once we were over the border, beckoning me over to their little group, offering me a mug of paint thinner they referred to as "vodka." Though I was still a tad hungover from the mandatory turning-30 birthday celebrations the previous night (Tom made me a cake! Teny sang for me in Armenian!), I could not turn down their hospitality, nor the opportunity to mug for the foreigners upon drinking their strong local distillant. Actually, there's a lot of drinking-for-leisure here in ex-U.S.S.R. (surprised?), so I feel like I've been hungover for a week... hence the dearth of posts, though the lack of Internet cafes contributes. I'm staying now with Dion, an English woman, and she has kindly brought me along to her office today so I could finally do some updating. There may not be any more, again, for a little while. Can I tell you readers anything interesting? There's been rain almost every day, it's cold, and I've mostly been drinking coffee and admiring the pretty, historic, European-esque buildings and drinking more coffee (by day...). I did visit a Turkish bath for the first time, where the full treatment "massage" consisted of me lying on a hard, marble slab while a bulky, cigarette-smoking Georgian man scoured, in two courses, all the dead (and some of the living) skin off my delicate body, pounded me a bit, and repeatedly dumped buckets of scalding water over my head without warning, all while a roomful of naked, uncircumcised men looked on. Don't you love, readers, my humerous use--to full effect in this post--of quotation marks?

The Land of the Unrecognized

2008-05-07T06:00:00.004-08:00

This post should be more interesting than usual.

You may or may not be aware, readers, but there are quite a few countries in the world that are not recognized as such by any other countries or any international bodies of governance. I have been fascinated by these mostly unknown enclaves ever since I stumbled across a Wikipedia article about them (and the even more fascinating "micronations"):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrecognized_countries

Here are some amusing, characteristic entries in the area of non-recognition:

North Korea is not recognized by South Korea.

South Korea is not recognized by North Korea.

The Czech Republic is not recognized by Liechtenstein due to a dispute over the applicability of the Beneš decrees.

Slovakia is not recognized by Liechtenstein due to a dispute over the applicability of the Beneš decrees.

Liechtenstein is not recognized by either the Czech Republic nor Slovakia due to its refusal to recognize them.

What a silly place, the world! But these are at least countries most people can jab their fingers at on a map (use your pinky nail for Liechtenstein). Have you ever heard of the unrecognized autonomous Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh? Didn't think so! But that's where I am right now, thus fulfilling a long-standing dream of mine to visit one of these bizarre little places. Am I in Armenia? I'm not sure. Have I entered Azerbaijan? I don't think so. But, tediously, I had to get yet another $30 visa just to visit, so I'm counting it as the 40th country outside the United States that I have had the pleasure and good fortune to visit (unless Monaco and Vatican City count). Allow me to explain: while the Soviet Union was collapsing like Boris Yeltsin at a cocktail party, a process was established for the SSRs to declare their independence. That process was followed successfully by the three universally recognized nations of the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. A small chunk of Azerbaijan SSR, however, claiming historic and ethnic associations with Armenia, decided to declare independence in its own right. The result was war. Azerbaijan invaded, bombed, and whinged about the violation of its territorial integrity, but, amazingly, they lost. The NKR even expanded its territory, making it contiguous with Armenia (before it sort of just floated in the middle of Azerbaijan). One of Karabakh's chief ministers then went on to become the present President of Armenia, and now there's a nice, new road connecting that country to Stepanakert, the capital city here. Azerbaijan continues to pretend sovereignty over Karabakh, so it remains to be seen whether or not the country will achieve true independence and international recognition or remain in its weird grey zone up in the clouds.

I half-expected it to be a prolonged, arduous ordeal to get here, involving things like interminable delays, horrid road conditions, army maneuvers, corrupt border officials, and goats. As an indication of the actual, disappointingly prosperous conditions, let me just say that when I asked a Karabakh girl on my minibus the time, she responded by whipping out an iPhone, at which I goggled. When I inquired how someone from a dirt-poor, unrecognized, autonomous ex-Soviet mountain republic could afford such a toy ($500 at least), she blithely answered that such things are not considered expensive in Armenia. Excuse me! At least I managed to deploy my famous charm to connive her into arranging a cheap homestay for me. The old lady I'm staying with stuck me in a basement room with no heat, shower, or toilet, but hey, it's cheap. She doesn't speak a word of English, so we had a spot of difficulty discussing the price and my plans. At one point, she asked if I spoke Russian. Don't these people know anything about Americans? We don't speak anything, much less Commie-talk!

Stepanakert is a fairly dismal place and looks much more like a depressing, Soviet-era city than anything I've seen in Armenia proper. The fact it's been foggy and rainy since I arrived doesn't help. Yesterday morning, I woke quasi-early, hoping to get a minibus up to a monastery which claims to possess the head of John the Baptist, which ended up here after a circuitous journey of centuries between Europe, Turkey, and the Holy Land. Believe it? I don't! But I was disappointed to miss the one and only transportation option so I could at least say I went there, credible or not, and I'm too cheap/poor to hire a taxi to bring me to such places. So instead, I went to the nearby town of Shoushi, which proved far more interesting. It was bombed during the war (ending 1994), but, unlike Stepanakert, does not appear to have been rebuilt to much extent. And it was an Ottoman Turkish town at one point, so many of the bombed-out buildings are quite old, with Turkish script details on a few (I found a mosque and a caravanserai) and neat cobblestone roads meandering between them. The dense fog made it even more atmospheric, and I wandered in the quiet gloom for hours. By the time I started walking back, I didn't even notice that I was soaking wet from the moisture in the air. Since I was walking, I didn't feel cold, but it is certainly chillier here than in, say, Yemen. I'm certainly glad I didn't mail my sweater home. A passing minibus picked me up as I stupidly (and typically) tried to walk back to Stepanakert, and it was once I was on board that I discovered what a dripping wet fool I looked like. And I've been wondering why all the people around here keep laughing at me.

So that's it for the oddity that is Nagorno-Karabakh. But my adventures in unrecognized, autonomous mountain republics are far from over. Georgia, my next stop, contains two of them! And I fully intend to break through the red tape, if I can, of at least one.

Today, I am 30 years old.

Yemen to Yerevan

2008-05-06T02:02:00.003-08:00

Sorry for the delay in postings, folks, but Internet access remains unreliable, slow, and frustrating. Yesterday, for example, I wrote a nice, long post about Armenia--in Word even, so Blogger wouldn't eat it--and, should I be surprised?, Word crashed, and I lost it anyway. Windows, you are the scourge of mankind. I hate you. So here we go again.

When I stepped into the departure lounge for Yerevan at Sharjah International Airport, I saw a tired group of people. They were disheveled, their eyes were dark, and they looked a bit drunk. In support of this latter, they all carried plastic bags bulging with bottles of duty-free alcohol. The men looked beligerent and wore pointy, black shoes. The women were dressed in a style which I have since nicknamed "haphazard trashy" (something I haven't seen anywhere else except, well, New Jersey). Seeing this sight, I knew I was in the right place: these were Armenians.

I am exaggerating a little bit for comic effect, but the men really do wear pointy, black shoes, and the women really do dress quite trashily, with tight, revealing clothes and way too much cheap make-up/perfume. Not that I'm complaining! After months in religiously conservative nations where women mostly cover up their bodies, it is refreshing to see once again such liberal displays of cleavage and excessive reliance on push-up bras. Armenia, ho!

The flight to Yerevan became eventful when I rose from my three-seat-across slumber (score!) to see the majestic Mt. Ararat majestically looming before me in all its majesty. Snow-capped and over 5000 meters high, it's the Armenian holy mountain, though located nowadays in hated Turkey, and also the traditional final resting place of Noah's ark--so I guess it's appropriate that I'm coming to Armenia from the city of Shem, retracing the footsteps in reverse of the Semitic son.

I was surprised by how nice the airport is--high-end designer retail and all--and this made me feel both reassured and uneasy. I was also surprised when I was hit with a $50 visa charge. C'mon, Armenia, your country's the size and shape of a spare rib. Why can't these former Soviet Socialist Republics just drop the damn visa fees, or charge like $1 per hundred million square kilometers they occupy?

Cleverly dodging the taxi vultures, and though unable to speak Armenian (people keep asking me if I speak Russian--"why the fuck would I speak Russian?" I glibly respond), I somehow find my way downtown to my meeting point with English Tom, my couchsurfing host in Yerevan. I mostly hang out with him and his Iranian-Armenian girlfriend Teny for the next few days, going off on my own only to explore the city a bit, see the Armenian Genocide Museum (continuing my self-designed educational tour of the world's greatest crimes against humanity), and visit a "heathen" temple and ancient monastery in the nearby countryside. Tom is on a multi-year bicycle trip around the world. He and I both left our respective countries at about the same time, and here is where we met, Armenia, the crossroads of the world. I'm lucky he got a bit bogged down and has an apartment to make available to me. Since leaving England last July, Tom reports that he's only spent about $3000. And he's 24! So much for experience.

Armenia prides itself on being the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion (in 301 A.D.!). Yerevan, the capital, prides itself on having been founded a full 29 years before Rome (in 782 B.C.!). So you can imagine what things are like today, after the intervening several thousand years during which there was nothing for them of which to be proud. Actually, and even though I had read that Yerevan is somewhat depressing in a post-Soviet way, I rather like all the red concrete stone architecture. And after months in dry, desolate, and over-urbanized places, the abundance of trees and greenery in Yerevan's relaxed neighborhoods has been almost as refreshing as the abundant cleavage. And the countryside around the city is wonderful! Hilly and sparsely forested, it climbs and rolls and dips, looking to me like Scotland or parts of New Zealand.

I like it here. Unfortunately, the road goes ever on, and I cannot remain long. Georgia, with its traditional hospitality (and Southern belles?) beckons. But before that, I have one more oddity of an adventure to undertake.

Hounding Mahound

2008-05-05T07:30:00.001-08:00

While I was enjoying a cup of shai outside the Sultan’s palace in Seiyun, Yemen, someone gave me a small book—actually, the book just appeared in front of me, so perhaps this was a case of divine intervention. The book in question was “The Religion of Truth” by Abdul Rahman Ben Hammad Al-Omar. I love Muslim names, by the way. They’re more like little family histories than names. If I ever convert, I’m going to pick a really cool one that goes on forever, like Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Sharif Al-Islam bin Hamid Aziz Ali Al-Omar bin Akbar bin Yosef bin Ismail Al-Sheik (“Shakes” for short). Anyway, “The Religion of Truth” is an Islam primer for unbelievers like myself (how did they know?) printed by the ultra-conservative Wahabis in Saudi Arabia. I read it on the plane from Sana’a to Sharjah, where, at an airport Costa Coffee, I abandoned it.

Those of you who frequent my society are no doubt familiar with my pitiless, uncharitable contempt for most forms of religion and spirituality. Given this profound and no doubt excessively intolerant prejudice, you might normally expect me to eviscerate the more sincerely idiotic passages from a book such as this, subjecting them to a biting, narcissistically cynical scorn that, while amusing to myself and a few others, is nonetheless unoriginal, offensive, and rather cowardly insofar as my victims are unable to respond to my vituperations. Friends, if these are truly your expectations, I should not like to fail meeting them, and so this is exactly what I am going to do.

Please note that I am not attacking Islam itself in this case, however much I may regard it, like (to be fair) every other, as a stupid religion with ridiculous premises, but only Mr. Al-Omar’s book, which is certainly one of the blatantly dumbest works of proselytizing literature I’ve ever encountered and would be more likely to send me rushing into the arms of the Mormons than to induce me to start wearing gowns and stoning my wives were I susceptible to proselytizing in the first place. That said, I’ll never forgive the Muslims for stealing Cat Stevens away from us.

“One of the most demonstrative and logical evidences which prove that the Quran is the revelation of Allah to His Messenger Muhammed is the fact that Allah had challenged the unbelievers of Qurayesh to produce a book like the Quran.”

And they couldn’t do it! But other than being asinine (the language of the King James Bible is quite beautiful, too, though it was only produced by human beings), isn’t this argument circular? The Quran is true because nobody in Qurayesh (and they were clever fellows) could write a Quran? I suppose that isn’t as circular as most of the Omar’s arguments, which are usually something like “The Quran is true because Mohammed said it was, and Mohammed spoke the truth because the Quran says he did” or, more laconically, “According to the Quran, the Quran is the truth.” But it’s still pretty stupid. And so is this notion that God only speaks Arabic. Abdul, if you’re going to win converts in the skeptical West, you’re going to have to come up with better “demonstrative and logical evidences” than these. I’d stick with IEDs if I were you.

That was just a warm-up.

“People, by their natural and innate character, believe that they came to existence by the creation and sustenance of a Creator. Allah is the Creator and Sustainer of all creatures. Whoever denies this innate nature is going astray and throwing himself into distress. Thus, the communist, who denies the existence of his Creator and Sustainer, leads a miserable life, and in the Hereafter his end will be in Hell-fire.”

OK, I’m going to have to skip right over the false deductive premises this bit opens with, because I want to know why he goes after the Communists! Granted, most of them probably do live miserable lives (not too many happy faces here in the former USSR), but is he suggesting that all atheists are, by definition, Communists? And that Communism is unnatural? Was this book funded by the US government? Perhaps there’s a deeper message here, that Hell itself is something like a Communist state. I suppose everyone there is equal (unlike the rigid hierarchies of grace found in the class-oriented Heaven) and, as in Communism on Earth, equally miserable, and I guess this pretense of infernal democracy is likewise lorded over by a dictatorial tyrant who ensures his subjects constant suffering. Hey, I think you’re on to something here, Ben! Well, I never considered myself a Communist before, but I guess I’ll be seeing you in hell, comrades.

“It is a fact that a healthy man can satisfy the sexual desires of four women.”

A fact! Just ask women! Seriously, Hammad, are you, like, a virgin or something? Have you, in fact, tried satisfying, for example, one woman? I like to think that I myself am a healthy man, but I find your rationale for polygamy just ever so slightly completely terrifying. I have just one more question, Mr. Ramen Noodles, why stop at four?

I suppose that’s enough shitting all over Islam for this week. Now that I’ve left the Middle East and arrived in Armenia (wait, is Armenia in the Middle East? I don’t know!), there are upcoming bigger and better things for me to shit all over. Literally and metaphorically, I wonder if I’ve done much else this entire trip. Food for thought (sorry) for those of you considering a similar voyage. Ciao! (sorry again)

I am a Caucasian

2008-05-03T12:01:00.002-08:00

This post is only to inform you, my readers, that I have safely transited from Yemen to Armenia, and I think it's safe to say that Air Arabia's Sana'a to Yerevan run, taking you, as it does, from a conservative Arab society to a Post-Soviet one, is the number one culture shock flight in the world. I can't write more because it's late, and I'm using the computer of my English couchsurfing host's Iranian-Armenian girlfriend, and she wants to go to sleep. So more interesting things, at my usual, greater length, anon.

The Frankincense Trail to the Yemen

2008-04-30T11:07:00.003-08:00

If I won't be doing a Road to Damascus post, the Frankincense Trail will have to suffice. And I'm not making it up, either--after the Silk Road (check), the incense trail through South Arabia is the next most famousest. Sad to say, it's a bit boring. The destinations, however, more than make up for it. So jump on your camel, beg Allah's mercy, and join me as we travel 3000 km from Muscat to Sana'a...

After the red deserts of Dubai and the craggy crags around Muscat, I was hoping for some "killer" scenery on the 12 hour bus trip to Salalah. I wasn't disappointed--the entire thousand-plus kilometer journey was through one of the flattest, bleakest, deadly-hottest deserts I've ever seen (and I've seen, basically, them all). One passenger literally melted when we got off at the lunch stop. His ticket was refunded to his family (company policy). Salalah, I am told, is the place to be in Arabia in July, when a light monsoon blows over from India to make the place as green and misty as England (and boy do they love it there!). April, one of the best months everywhere else on Earth, is not in. The only notable thing that happened was a nice shopkeeper asking me, incredulous, why I was going to Yemen. Didn't I hear about the recent fighting/bombings in Ma'reb (on my route)? Just like the US State Department's travel advisory warning Americans against all non-essential travel to Yemen, however, I brushed his concerns aside (just to be clear, all my travel is essential thank you). When I asked him, "What is Yemen like?" he said first that Oman is better and second that it's totally different, for example, it's poor and dirty and some of the taxis don't even have doors! Hearing this, I knew which country I was going to prefer.

I woke up at 5 am for the second day in a row (feel the impact, readers) to board the second leg bus to Seiyun, Yemen. Like the first bus, it was frigid when I boarded, but at midday, they turned down the A/C, making most of the journey sweaty and uncomfortable. Why? At the border post, the true differences between rich and poor Arabia became immediately clear. Pristine conditions on the Oman side. A truck waiting to give the strung-out Yemenis their qat fix (more later) on the decrepit Yemen side (I changed my money in a shack-shop thing). Still, the Yemeni officials were the nicest I've ever met--far more considerate than the British customs officer who wondered, aloud, why the hell I and all the other Americans felt it necessary to celebrate the millennium in London. I think he would benefit from sensitivity training. In Yemen. Also--and I am a connoisseur of such things--the Yemeni visa sticker is the most gorgeous there is, bar none; it's big, it's green, it's got a shiny star as a security device: it clearly eats up 10% of their national budget, easy. Armed once again with my overpriced permission to cross the frontier, we proceeded through another deadly and deadening landscape to Wadi Hadramawt. Remember that a wadi is like a canyon, or, more accurately, a dry river bed. Hadramawt is a big, complex on and looks like a fjord, just in the middle of a desert. Much of this wadi's floor is under cultivation, so there were some splashes of color to break the monotony of beige as we decended into it: mostly date palms, crop fields, and female goatherds dressed all in black but with a distinctive high, straw hat. They looked like the mage character from Final Fantasy. There's something else you should know about Wadi Hadramawt: IT'S ONE OF THE MOST SPECTACULAR PLACES ON EARTH. Did you hear that?

Muslim countries are not as popular among backpackers as the Buddhist, Christian, or even the whatever-the-hell-India-is ones. Alcohol can be difficult to find, beach parties (and beaches... and parties) are typically nonexistent, and--this is the deal breaker for the guys--you can't run around boning everything that moves. But it's too bad more of them don't suffer these hardships, because there is much to appreciate in these dry (and dry) places. Of all the countries I've been to, Yemen is so far the closest to that imaginary land of authenticity where everyone is still authentic for which (mostly annoying) travelers are often looking. The people are more tribal than nationalistic, the men still wear huge ceremonial blades in their belts (which stick up from them exactly like an erection so I'm not even sure it's "symbolic" at this point), mud brick is the construction material of choice, and the women dress like ninjas. It's also got authentic tribal violence committed sporadically by authentic warlords who authentically don't want to be ruled over by the state and who sometimes authentically kill foreigners because, like the xenophobic people of most authentic societies, they authentically hate them. In many ways, it's the Mexico of Arabia (or the Bolivia, given all the qat chewing), except for the aforementioned lack of alcohol, beach parties, and the walking bonable. It is definitely poor. It is definitely dirty. It is definitely cheap. It is definitely chaotic. And I definitely felt at home right away.

Back to Wadi Hadramawt. I wish I had weeks! Realistically, it's just too hot to enjoy at the moment, but I am eager to return in "winter" when it's bearable. Even at 110 degrees F, though, it is just a wonderful place--like another world. The wadi itself is huge--its rocky tendrils reach and fan out for hundreds of kilometers into the high plateau that stretches all the way from the Empty Quarter to the coast. The settlements are almost invariably comprised of mud-brick apartment buildings. Big ones. Bigger ones than there should be. It sometimes looked like the Lower East Side of Manhattan, except in the desert and much, much dirti... er... cleaner. Seiyun, the Wadi's city, has plenty of these, too, and also a lovely, white Sultan's palace (former Sultan--Yemen is presently the Arabian peninsula's only democracy) that shines against the night sky in a way that reminded me instantly of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. My principal reason for stopping at Seiyun was to visit Shibam, a UNESCO mini-city of tall mud-brick apartment blocks, many incredibly reaching 8-10 stories or more and most centuries old. It was so incredible, in fact, I actually took photos. Three.

The final leg of my journey to Sana'a (I never actually bought frankincense, by the way, or myrrh) was to be yet another 12 hour bus marathon across harsh and unforgiving landscapes. This time, however, harsh and unforgiving tribal militants would be thrown in for added excitement. Most of the time, this route is closed to foreigners, so the travel gods were smiling on me (or, uh, not) that I was allowed to go. I had to get a permit, though, and ten copies of it to hand over at the innumerable (OK, ten) checkpoints along the way. Naturally, I chose the night bus. We were never stopped, a video of my post-kidnapping decapitation was not uploaded to YouTube, and I still have all those damn permit copies. Yemen dangerous? Pfft.

I arrived in Sana'a at 4:30 am. I sat and drank tea until six, which I deemed a proper enough time to contact my local Couchsurfing host... who never answered his phone, not even three hours later. So. I hoofed it. Sana'a is reputed, like Damascus and Varanasi and who knows where else, to be the oldest city in the world. Legend says, and this is the trump, that it was founded by Shem! Like, Shem the son of Noah Shem! Can't beat that! Unlike its rival claimants, too, it still looks like an ancient city. As in the wadi, most of the buildings in Old Sana'a are tall, mudbrick apartment blocks (or family houses, actually). Here, though, they are decorated to look exactly like gingerbread houses. The foundations are stone, and these are the really old bits (at least a thousand years give or take a millennium). Higher stories rise in brick... and rise, and rise. Imagine that, imagine 14,000 of these magical ancient buildings together, really, and you may have some inkling of what Sana'a is like. It's hard to believe such a place exists on Earth. I'm here right now, and I still don't believe it.

Anyway, from six in the morning until about nine, I wandered--with my big backpack--around and among and betwixt just about all of these gingerbread houses on steroids looking for a hotel. This was no problem, because Sana'a is higher than 2000 meters and the mornings are chilly. I was somewhat taken aback that I couldn't find a hotel, though. Delightfully taken aback in a way, but I did want to dump my bag somewhere, and I sure had that post-12 hour bus trip through the desert at night, really want to take a shower feeling going. Finally, defeated, I climbed to the top of one of the more expensive options I *did* find, to the cafe, and found sitting there my savior: a Japanese man with a copy of the Lonely Planet pages for Sana'a. We chatted amicably, I told him about the insane Japanese guy I inevitably discovered was traveling across Yemen by bicycle, and he was only too happy to let me copy them for myself. He even directed me to the cheapest hotel in town (the usual Japanese flophouse that seems to exist in every city on Earth) that was not listed in the increasingly upmarket and disappointing LP. Who ever said I was wasting my time learning their ridiculous language? Miraculously (oh ye travel gods!), the hotel itself had a copier and even--gulp--did it for me for free! Tourism has not taken hold here, people.

Much of the rest of the day I spent weaving in and out and around and among and betwixt the buildings of Old Sana'a some more. For lunch, I ventured to try the "must-try" local specialty: salta. Not just a city in northern Argentina, salta is a spicy stew that you eat by scooping it up with torn pieces of naan-like flatbread. I don't know exactly what went into my stew, but I know it had emotions, so chalk yet another beast up to my international culinary experimentations. Must-try my ass, by the way, though the guys who ate it with me apparently paid for it, too. What nice people, these Yemenis, when they aren't engaging in communal violence!

Following my salta feast, I wandered some more and eventually decided to visit a museum I'd read about, one of the ancient houses opened to let tourists see how beautiful they are on the inside, too. This is when my luck took a decided turn... for the even more amazing. Even as I walked into the third floor family room, a Yemeni woman (whose face, bizarrely, was showing), greeted me. Startled, I looked around a bit, then came back and wondered if her brothers were waiting in the next room to stone me if I answered her. In the end, they didn't stone me, shoot me in a stadium, or set me on fire, because they weren't even there! They were a figment of my imagination! So I did end up talking after all to a Yemeni woman (my first conversation with any Arab woman anywhere, I think), and she eventually invited me upstairs (like, way way upstairs) to another diwan (great view) where she and a few of her colleagues were gathering to talk and chew qat. Even her hair made an appearance at this point. Totally certain that I was being set up for an honor killing, Nawal put me at ease by shoving qat into my mouth. OK, now we get to the part of this post where I tell you what "qat" is. Well, it's a leaf. And the Yemenis spend most of their lives chewing it (hence the depressed economy--qat is illegal everywhere else in the world, for the most part, though strangely not the UK). I guess it's some kind of very mild drug, but I can't tell you what the effects are because I didn't feel any. But this was another must-try thing in Yemen, so I gave it my best, even though I almost choked at the first, bitterest-of-bitter taste and never got the hang of storing the wad in my cheek without swallowing it. I swallowed leaf, stem, juice and all but at least figured I'd earn a better high for my ineptness. No such luck. But we ended up chewing for hours, they for far more hours than I could certainly tolerate. We were there so long, I heard the Muslim call to prayer from the neighboring mosque twice. I think they're still there. I left when I finally got bored of not being able to understand Arabic. But I left with an entire Sana'a social network. If I ever come back here for language study, and I am seriously considering this (note the now-defunct poll results agree), I already have people to practice and hang out with. And on the top foor of that really cool rich person's traditional six hundred year old house. Really, I want to know: how do I do it? I sure don't think I deserve having these things happen to me. Right place, right time? Down to the second?

Pity that North and South Yemen reunified in 1990 (you heard, right??), otherwise I'd have gotten credit for visiting two remarkable countries instead of just one. Ongoing civil unrest ensures that I've still got a shot, though. My only question is, will it count if I was there when they were still unified? Ditto all those breakaway provinces in Armenia and Georgia: unofficial, non-recognized nation states, here I come!

Arabian Nights

2008-04-26T04:21:00.002-08:00

Sometimes I wonder why, and if, anyone is still reading my blog. My journeys are often uncomfortable and tedious--to describe as well as live through; I frequently resort to crude and offensive language either to add color to my little anecdotes or simply to vent off pent-up frustrations; and I have an alarming tendency to keep you, my dear readers, whose attention I ought to covet and sensibility to respect, informed as to the precise condition of my bowels (speaking of which, I am happy to report that the consistency of my excreta has jumped up a notch from soupy to chunky). Surely you would have a better time watching the Travel Channel (or even the Weather Channel) or possibly darning your docks. And yet, for as long as you remain faithful to me, I shall ever do likewise. And now, on to the show...

Arabian nights, like Arabian days, more often than not really are hotter than hot, but I'm not sure in what good ways. Muscat, which name reminds me of a dessert wine, is not really a city per se but more like a region with lots of little enclaves packed into the canyons, or "waids", that dominate the terrain of this part of Oman. The architectural guidelines ensure that all the enclaves are uniformly bland and cute: all the buildings are low-rise, painted white, and have some kind of Arabesque detailing. The only way around the enclaves, some of them genuinely historical, is by taxi. This is expensive, so I only really did it today. For the same reason, I've only really been eating falafel, which is universally available. Muscat does have a nice "corniche" which every coastal Arab city I've been to has. There are enormous cruise ships and oil tankers parked in this one. Naturally, there's a souvenir souk, too. The older part of town is dominated by a genuine Sultan's palace (the Omanis love him and the oil checks he sends them, but word on the street is that the heirless Sultan is fabulous). But ho-hum, what I actually did today was take a taxi to the old city, wander around, wander into the wrong museum (of French-Oman relations--boy do I not give a rat's f*cking ass about that!), take another cab to the corniche, where the cab driver refused to take any money because I wouldn't give him 200 baisa instead of 100 (he is not aware that backpackers like myself have no honor), find the right museum, fail to gain admittance because of the afternoon siesta, walk defeated through the scorching Arabian sun through the dusty, traffic-filled wadi to the CBD enclave, buy myself bus tickets onward through to Seiyun, Yemen, get another taxi to the Oman Museum in Qurm (closed!) and then to the Embassy of Yemen (closed!) and then back to Susan's place (I have the key!). I offered the cabbie 3 rial for his pains--it took us awhile to find the places I wanted to go because a) he doesn't speak English, b) my Arabic has atrophied into non-existence, and c) he didn't know where anything is--but he wanted an outrageous 5 (remember that a rial is $2.60, not a currency with which to be trifled). I told him I'm a poor student with no money, so he said OK 4 rial. I said how about 3.50? He said No, 4 rial last price. I reached into my pocket, past all the big notes, and slowly picked out, one at a time, 3.80 rial worth of small change. OK? Sheepishly. OK. Haha. Still got it.

Moving back in time, yesterday was Super Susan's day off, and she superly volunteered to drive me into the Omani mountains, up to the traditional capital of Nizwa, where we intended to visit the famous Nizwa fort, which was closed. Friday is the weekend here, but it's also a holy day, but it's also the day people can go see stuff, but they still close stuff early. How annoying! But I saw another highly-remodeled expensive Omani souk. I bought a falooda. There was a cute Taiwanese girl there, too, starring in a TV program of some sort. We drove over to Bahla next to check out the (closed) UNESCO castle. Then further into the awesomely-beautiful mountains to see some also UNESCO-listed beehive-shaped rock tomb things. Open, but not exactly Machu Picchu. In the evening, we went drinkin' at the Hyatt (thanks for the drink, Susan! I can't afford $10 beers!), but Susan didn't like the cover band, and I spent most of the time watching professional wrestling on the TV and secretly glancing at all the Filipina prostitutes, so we left early. This morning, before she went to work, she brought me over to the Grand Mosque (usually closed so I finally got one right) to see the world's largest carpet. It's pretty damn big, people. Like 100 feet x 100 feet (I don't feel like looking it up) and inside one of the more ridiculously opulent mosques I've seen in my short little life. It's the only mosque I'll be seeing in Arabia, since the rest in Oman and all of them in Yemen are closed to non-Muslims. I've developed an appreciation for mosques, not as religious institutions (could care almost less than French-Oman relations) but as parts of urban fabric. Since they're always pointed toward Mecca, they're often out of alignment with their surroundings. Slightly ajar or tilted, they introduce a nice modicum of dissonance into rigid streetscapes. Extra, "useless" land seems to result, grassy, landscaped bits sometimes, and these become de facto plazas or parks or meeting areas. I think it's a sweet effect. Or unintended consequence? To use popular jargon. And now we've come full circle.

Since my toilet time has finally regularized again, I'll be leaving Muscat tomorrow morning. First stop, Salalah (lalalala), after a 10-12 hour slog through nothingness. The following day, I enter Yemen during another 10-12 hour slog but hopefully through more attractive scenery. And hopefully the Yemenis will let me into their country, too. The visa should be no problem, but the security situation is always changing, and I don't have any of the required permits you're supposed to have with many photocopies of to make, as a foreigner, any of these journeys into the heart of Arabia. But I have my smile. And all of you should know how effective that is. Roadblocks beware!

If the smile doesn't work, I also have money.

Oh, man!

2008-04-23T22:11:00.002-08:00

In true Arabian fashion, I have been treated to quite fine hospitality here. My couchsurfing host in Dubai took me out, drove me around a bit, and had an apartment full of amenities to leave at my disposal. His Syrian roommate was unbelievably welcoming, too: two minutes after meeting me, upon learning of my difficulties in procuring a visa to his country, he called his friend at the Syrian consulate and told me it was all taken care of. I'd still have to wait a week for approval from Damascus, though, so I don't think I'll be able to take advantage of his kindness. Still, what connections! He even gave me one of his necklaces as a going away present. To thank Ismail and Hassan, I made pasta for them one night. I know this sounds like the lamest possible meal to cook, but I made the sauce from scratch, as is my custom. I don't think they'd ever had it before, because when they served themselves, they separated the pasta and sauce on either side of their plate and used the sauce like a dip. How amusing our cultural differences can be sometimes!

Yesterday, as usual, I just barely managed to make the Dubai-Muscat Express bus. And now I am in a country called Oman, which my new couchsurfing host, Susan, who is possibly even more hospitable, calls the jewel of the Gulf. She's not mistaken: this country seems even nicer than the UAE. Even the border post looks more like a Sultan's palace than a government facility. Everything appears to be new. Everything is clean. Everything is detail-perfect. You would have a hard time imagining this kind of wealth if you never saw it. I mean, what country spends money decorating highway rotaries with elaborate sculpture? Or even plants flowers in them?

Look, people, if you think the Middle East is just an impoverished breeding ground for terrorists, you need to make one of these countries your next vacation destination, OK? Oman is nicer than America! The whole place is like an Aladdin theme park, every building and even the highway viaducts conforming to Arabian Nights architectural codes, with domes and arches and crenelations all over everything. Many hundreds of years ago, the fabulous wealth of the infidel Orient was legendary in Europe. I can assure you, friends, that the legend is real in our own day. The only difference is that the men in white thobes and women in black hijabs drive cars instead of camels--expensive ones, too; even the lowliest engineer in Oman seems to have an Audi TT as his ride.

The woman I'm staying with now is a dental hygienist from Canada. Like so many people in the Gulf States, she is a foreigner (one-third of Muscat's population are ex-pats, mostly Indian, she tells me) who has come here looking for new opportunities and a higher standard of living. Her apartment, in which I am now sitting, is huge and immaculate, really much nicer than anything I ever expect to have in America, at least in such a good location.

Unfortunately, I won't be going out to tour the forts and sample the hummus today: once again, I have acquired a case of explosive diarrhea (in Dubai of all places?!). Susan, just back from India herself, sympathizes. Constant trips to the toilet have made me weary, so I'm just going to lay around watching her collection of DVDs. And why not? It's the weekend in Oman, time to be lazy and escape the heat, and nothing will be open anyway. When I'm back to solid stools, I'll be back here to enthuse more about the jewel of the Gulf. Oh, man!

United Indian Emirates

2008-04-22T07:55:00.002-08:00

Holy Jesus Fuck is this place rich! Disgustingly rich! Blasphemously rich! I don't even know where to begin... perhaps where I began, on the quiet marble (!) floors of Sharjah International Airport, where I asked how I could make a phone call... no problem, just get a phone card. How much is the cheapest one? Only $10.

F*CK!

I knew I was in for it. A mobile phone salesman pitied me and passed a hunk of plastic with a screen over the counter to me. I gazed warily at the strange device, until he demonstrated how to operate it, and it was thus that I had my first old-man-not-with-the-times moment, a product, perhaps, of having spent the last few months in Indialand and, before that, usually being broke.

So in the last few days, I've seen the new tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai, and no building better deserves the name skyscraper or maybe skyscratcher than this elegant tower that juts up like a stalagmite from the Dubaian desert floor; an indoor ski slope attached to the most obscenely expensive and frighteningly ostentatious shopping mall, the Mall of the Emirates, I've ever seen (my friends here inform me that the Ibn Battuta Mall, named and themed after the famed Arab explorer, is even "better"); the Burj Al-Arab seven-star hotel you've all heard about (ho-hum after the strangely similarly-named Burj Dubai); and that island shaped like a palm tree--oops, there are THREE of them, so which one do I mean?? Oh, I went to the "old town" area and the Dubai Museum, too, but I have been far more impressed (overawed? intimidated? disgusted?) by the stratospheric affluence dripping from the palaces of consumerism.

Since the youth hostel in Dubai still costs $50/night, I was lucky to find another couchsurfing opportunity here and am therefore paying $0/night to stay in a gorgeous new apartment buildings out in the desert near the malls. The downside is that it's fairly remote from everything else, so I have to take buses everywhere--not usually a problem for me, but there's only one inconvenient route that serves this "neighborhood". Even today, I had to walk an hour and a half back across the desert from the Mall of the Emirates because I got tired of waiting for the bus. This place is like a combination of Singapore and Las Vegas: a commercial port city in the desert with randomly scattered blocks of development separated by tracts of sand and empty lots, the whole decorated with architectural features ranging from the gaudy to the grotesque.

I really can't begin to describe what this place is like. I think the next generation of critical theorists would have a field day here, as the last generation did in Los Angeles, if critical theory were allowed here (I didn't see any Adorno in the bookstores). Because this city is a mirage in the desert, a deceitful appearance of paradise just over the next dune, thirsty, grasping, treasure-seeking people are drawn here from all over the world, particularly India (I left India only to arrive in one of its satellite states--hence the title of this post--most people here speak Hindi). It may be capitalism hurtled toward its logical conclusion: government as administration, civics as shopping. You are welcome to come here and gorge yourself so long as you obey the masters--those guys in white robes and black head cords that drift around the place like ghosts, owning everything, lording it over everything. I suggested to some people that Dubai is like Alamut, the mountain stronghold of Hassan-i-Sabbah and the assassins. Hassan would drug his would-be servants, and they would awake to find themselves in male heaven: plates overflowing with food, unlimited quantities of hashish, lusty young women, and whatever else young men crave (brylcreem?). They would then fall asleep again only to awake once more in Hassan's presence, where they would quickly swear total allegiance to him in return for eternal life in his paradise. I think something much the same is going on here.

What Dubai offers is unparalleled comfort and luxury, all in return for your professional contribution to the oil-enriched Islamo-fascists (tee-hee) that govern the place. And for your docility. Because there are no politics here, none of the participation in communal and civic life that has traditionally rooted and empowered people... somewhere, in a place, a realm of belonging with a history and a meaning. Is there even a here, here? Dubai doesn't seem like a real place with real people at all. And most people I've asked don't like it. They say it's fake, boring, etc. But the money is addictive. Actually, I don't think it's fake at all. If anything, I think it's the realest place I've ever been. Social relations are not hidden. Perhaps in our own societies, there are things we don't see or would prefer not to: the ghosts that roam among us. Here, the ghosts are quite visible, whether the aforementioned guys in perfectly white robes or the endless supply of immigrant labor that has built this place and is still building it, that offers you hand towels in the bathrooms, that sells you everything you buy, and that washes your tax-free luxury SUV while you shop in the mall (!). Dubai is a social experiment, I think, one in which you can enjoy a simulated Western lifestyle (even better, actually) without Western freedom--just like that game, The Sims, in which life is stripped down to a course of needs, compulsions, and petty career advancement. What, then, is life for? What we don't appreciate is how much it has become this way in the West itself, where we claim money isn't everything, that shopping is not a panacea, that democracy is the only path to happiness. If none of this is true, we may all be doomed to follow Dubai's example, if Dubai is the city of the future (like that other fast-growing city of dreams in the desert, mostly broken, Las Vegas). This, I think, is too depressing to think about.

The standard of living can't possibly be higher anywhere else--the grass is greener than Ireland, and what the hell is grass even doing here? But there's a major prostitution problem. I don't mean the one that periodically clogs the Burj Al-Arab's plumbing with used condoms, I mean the kind of life everyone here seems to be living. Whoever comes, comes only for money--they are bought by the Arabs to do their bidding, the Arabs the ones with the real money around here. They are bought by the Arabs to build their society and economy for them so they don't have to do anything themselves, after which they are invited to leave again, so the Emiratis can pretend that their culture, despite foreign influences, remains intact and on their own terms. Since most people living here aren't native, there may yet be a revolution one day, but I doubt it while people are living this well. That's the creepiest thing of all. Everyone here is like a commodity, and I worry that in a place like this, you can only ever treat other people that way, as you yourself are treated (shit always gets passed down, doesn't it?). I've seen this sort of thing before--usually in ex-colonial states where white men escape the strictures and conventions of their own societies to play feudal lord (and doesn't the local patriarchy just imitate this?). Here, though, it's the Westerners who are the serfs (not to mention the hordes of non-Gulf Arabs, Indians, and Southeast Asians who are the serfs of the serfs). And nobody complains because there's enough money to go around to appease everyone.

I think it creates awful people out of good people. I wonder if such people even think anymore at all, or feel anymore, or just avoid such difficulties by taking Hassan's hashish, happily, dreamily secure in their mindless devotion to their oblivious overlords.

For all of this, I can't say I dislike Dubai--I leave that to the long-term residents. For me, it's a fascinating place, a fertile place for the sort of musings I've written in this post. It's also rich, clean, safe, and sometimes beautiful. Even part of me wants to live here. But I hope I never do.

The Steve's Guide to Hagglin'

2008-04-20T21:42:00.003-08:00

Since I am in that region of the world, stretching from Morocco to China, where you have to tediously negotiate the price of everything, I thought I would share some of my notes on the subject gathered after long experience. Most of this applies specifically to India, where I have been most recently, but since they invented the subtle art, these strategies will work anywhere crafty merchants are trying to rip you off.

1. Don't believe anything they say. This is Rule Number One.

2. Know the product and what it's worth, especially expensive items like carpets and statues. If you're ignorant about what you're buying, such as where it's made, by whom, and out of what, then you deserve to get Shanghaied.

3. Don't be in a rush. Check several shops before deciding. If shopkeepers sense you are hurrying through the process, they will stonewall you.

4. Avoid trick questions: What country are you from? Is this your first time in (e.g.) India? What is your profession? What other shops have you been to? Etc. They ask them to figure out your likely income and gullibility levels. Dodge them, lie, or don't even listen.

5. Ignore friendliness, meekness, servility, unctuousness, avuncularism, and cool dudeism--it's total bullshit and these pretenses often hide significant nastiness, which surfaces when you refuse to buy. Refer to Rule Number One.

6. Don't let them become your friend. Don't let them drag you into long conversations about your country, your family, life philosophy, etc. Ignore attempts to convert you to Islam. Your relationship is antagonistic--remember that. These people are not going to send you birthday cards. Why do you people insist on forgetting Rule Number One?

7. Wave away any attempts on their part to justify their prices or level of customer satisfaction with material evidence like logbooks or photos. Or look without seeing. If you play it cool, they may figure out that you're not going to be fooled so easily. Smile+glazed expression=success.

8. Don't ever feel pressured or guilty. Even if they follow you around, show you everything in the store, take things out of storage for you, and spend half a day explaining the virtues of their merchandise, you are not obligated to spend a dime. They are just doing their job and most of the time more of a job than you ever asked them to do. Ignore them when they claim they can't lower prices because they'd be losing money, get in trouble with their boss, or their families will starve to death. It's all bullshit. Refer to Rule Number One, please.
Note: at some shops, you will be asked to sit down to drink tea, especially at shops selling expensive items like carpets or other high-end items. This is a normal custom, not part of the scam, per se, so feel free to enjoy it, but don't feel pressured to buy a $2000 statue of Vishnu just because the salesman offered you a 50 cent cup of tea. Good salesmen won't actually rush you through such significant purchases, while deceitful ones will seem rather panicky about getting you to buy as quickly as possible so you don't have time to think and consider.

9. Ignore price qualifications, and by this I mean any justification they offer as a reason for the unusually "amazing" deal they allege to be offering you. This comes in many forms: because you're, e.g., American and they like Americans or their daughter/son/nephew is married to one; because you're a student/teacher/doctor/very good man/woman; because you're the first/last sale of the day; etc. Also pay no attention when they say "fixed price" or "last price." Sometimes some of these things can be true, but you'll never know when they are or when they're just trying to con you. Also ignore reasons for unacceptably high prices: better material; made in Europe; natural/organic/pure/real product, hard to find, my shop only, handmade, high cost of fuel; antique; one-of-a-kind; belonged to my dead great-greatmother; etc. Remember Rule Number One.

10. Don't volunteer information, but do ask leading questions. Avoid being drawn into tedious, off-topic conversations, but try to be skeptical and informed by inquiring about the workmanship of products, methods of manufacture, materials, and other fine details. If they dodge you ("very good! don't worry!"), it often means they don't know the answers or don't want to tell you. Honest shopkeepers, and they exist, will be forthcoming about such things. If you've shopped around, you can also tell when people are feeding you standard bullshit and when they're being honest. It happens!

11. If you want to buy, express no more than casual interest in the product you want, or better yet, in several products, only one of which you really want. Act bored but not tired. Point out as many flaws as possible, even imaginary ones. Don't enthuse about how nice it is. Don't stare at it for a long time. Be prepared to walk away without buying it if you don't get the price you want (usually half of the asking price or less depending on where you are and what it is--common items are often highly marked up, sometimes 5x the proper price, especially in tourist areas). Ask as politely as you can for price reductions--don't just feel entitled to them, or you risk offending the shopkeeper's fragile honor. Offering to buy more than one of something, or a number of things all together, should almost always procure further discounts.

12. When it comes down to settling on a price--the actual haggling--learn through experience. I can't explain this part. The usual method is to offer a much lower price than you're comfortable paying, then the shopkeeper offers a higher one, but lower than the original, then you go back and forth until you settle somewhere in the middle, both sides engaging in various forms of emotional subterfuge. It's an art and one you get better at with time and practice.

12. Remain as friendly and cheerful as possible the entire time, even if they are pissing you off. Emotional tension will not get you anywhere and will often make shopkeepers stubborn and sulky if they don't just ask you to leave. Do not say "but I saw this exact item cheaper elsewhere." It doesn't work (then why don't you just go buy it there?), and it often pisses them off. Also, try not begin haggling unless you seriously intend to buy something. You may like to price things out this way, but it's not proper form, and the shopkeepers won't appreciate it if you keep doing it. Remember that they do this every day, for a living, so they will see through your ruses easily. They will also respect a good negotiator, though, especially one who respects and doesn't offend them and doesn't force any significant breaches of etiquette. Bear in mind--they may be trying to rip you off, but they would prefer to sell at a reasonable price than not sell at all. They are businessmen first and foremost and are just trying to do business, even if it's in a way to which you aren't accustomed. The thing is, you at least have a chance to negotiate a good price and get a nice souvenir or quality product for much less than you'd pay in your own country. At Disneyland, you will get ripped off whether you like it or not: there's no negotiating in the Magic Kingdom.

13. Don't appear confused or indecisive. Avoid awkward silences.

14. If you can't get a price with which you're satisfied, then walk away. They may chase after you or give up on you. They will not entertain ridiculously low prices (especially in tourist areas where people are easy to rip off) anymore than you will ridiculously high ones. You can always come back again later. Or, if you really want the item, just accept their price, which is the consequence of really wanting something and not maintaining your detachment. Very few of these touristy souvenir shops will have items you can't get elsewhere, though. Naturally, unique products are harder to negotiate for, but stuff that every shop has, and therefore isn't as sought after, shouldn't be hard to acquire for a reasonable price. Many people leave their shopping for the last few days of their trips. I don't recommend this, because it will mean you're in a rush to buy, and you're more likely to pay too much. It's better, in my opinion, to purchase things as you come across them, when you're in a relaxed state of mind (not the "I have to shop for so and so" or "right now I am shopping" states of mind), and when it's a casual, unplanned part of your day--a happenstance. Buy if you like and don't buy if you don't. If you really do see something you like, but you don't want to pay, you can undoubtedly find something similar, or just something else, that you like just as much somewhere else. You'll get over not buying something sooner than you will paying too much for some junky thing you'll later realize isn't so important to you (shopper's remorse). You will occasionally get ripped off, but try to take it in stride--it happens to everybody, including the experienced. You will also get some amazing deals if you're patient, skilled, and a little bit lucky. The two tend to even out, and, unless you're buying real estate, you probably won't get ripped off too much, relative to your own currency.

15. Finally, once again, DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY! For some reason, this is the hardest one for people to learn. As P. T. Barnum once said, there's a sucker born every minute. Try not to be one of them.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

2008-04-19T19:44:00.002-08:00

I am leaving India, and the subcontinent where I have been for so long, and it seems appropriate that I write some kind of sentimental summing up of things. In the spirit of my original declaration, I will keep it brief.

I had a good time. I never came here to "find myself" or lose myself, though it seems so many foreigners do come to reinvent themselves, improve themselves, or just to be someone else for awhile. India must be the perfect place for this, because, as they themselves often say, everything is possible here. Still, I can't help but feel that despite visiting, I am still 16,000 miles away from most of them. There are mysteries hidden behind their mustaches that no amount of earnest chit-chat can penetrate. India does an excellent job of appearing to be open, accessible, and permeable by every possible influence, idea, or kind of person with whatever kind of agenda. But I think there is something illusory about that. Westerners, in particular, are invited to come and indulge (inexpensively) in every possible pursuit, whether material (trekking, sightseeing, eating) or spiritual (yoga, meditation, transformational hypnotherapy). The level of permissiveness is seductive, too, because it's a permissiveness we don't experience at home any more than the Indians themselves are able to enjoy it here--and yet we seem to think, to the extent that it makes us feel so free and pure, that it bridges some gap between our Western societies lost to modernity and the ancient wisdom we believe resides in Asia. Certainly, there are sincere attempts and sincere successes at doing just that: whether it's Western backpackers spurning material comfort for austerity practices in an ashram or a middle-class Indian family abandoning the banalities of tradition for Western consumerism, hands are always reaching across whatever gaps persists between us. The problem, I suppose, is that what we are grasping for is not always what's reaching out from the other side--we could miss in the middle. Personally, I have long been intrigued by the scholarly notion of the "Indo-European", which suggests there are ancient affinities, more than just linguistic, between East and West, at least among Europeans and the Indian peoples. I thought I could get some sense of those affinities by coming here, but it will take time--and distance--before my ideas on the subject are properly matured.

I am leaving India. Today, I will enter into an entirely different civilization, society, and mentality: the Arabian. And after that, the Eastern Orthodox. And after that, the Turkish. One almost has to keep ones defenses up to be able to confront so many and still return an intact person. I am leaving India, but part of my thoughts will remain here, even if at rest, in a place that defies any kind of easy or cursory examination such as I have attempted to do these past few months. Most of all, I will miss the cows.

Om.

Hare Om!

Many nights in Bangkok

2008-04-19T18:27:00.003-08:00

This post concludes the series of my retrospective adventures. Should I have time, I may endeavor to review my year on Planet Japan, if only in regret that I didn't keep a blog with that title when I was actually there. Such an undertaking, needless to say, daunts me, so you will forgive me if I never attempt it.

I arrived in Bangkok on a sultry day. I like this city very much--I would even consider living there if not for the acrimonious air--and I was glad to be accepted back into its however fetid embrace. I chose to stay at the famous and rambling Suk11 Hotel on Sukhumvit Road, and I recommend this place if you can manage to get a reservation (often full and they're lazy about returning emails). Sukhumvit had changed a lot since last I visited in 1999. For example, they built a "Skytrain" mass transit system, the sole purpose of which seems to be to connect all the fancy hotels and giant shopping malls they also built. This part of Bangkok now looks more "futuristic" than Tokyo, or the Tokyo people imagine anyway, since Tokyo only looks futuristic circa 1985. You will not be surprised that I spent a certain amount of time in the cheap but beautiful cinema megaplexes, foregoing, however, the $12 VIP seating (some in "racecars"). I also spent a certain amount of time wandering around goggle-eyed at all the high-end retail shopping and high-end retail shoppers.

I had even more excitement in store because the very same day I arrived, I was set to meet my good friend Miss Fern, who was flying over to Thailand to take a massage course. Despite some confusion at the airport, I managed to pick her up with the assistance of my "Miss Fern" sign. We spent the next few days poking around the endlessly wonderful and labyrinthine markets and some of the more interesting neighborhoods. I let Fern set the agenda since a) I'd been there before and b) I was primarily occupied with gorging myself on street food (safe to eat in Bangkok). We also moved to a different hotel, the Sri Ayuttaya Guest House in Thewet (north of the infamous Khao San Road), which I only mention because it's a lovely place where you should also stay, except the desk staff are bitches.

Once Fern was feeling comfortable in the exotic environs, we planned our jaunt to the north. We visited the ancient city of Sukhothai, where an Italian gentleman tried chatting Fern up, and also the less-visited city of Nan. At Nan, we organized a hill tribe trek, which is this thing that everyone does in Thailand and is kind of a questionable practice. Basically, every traveler to this part of Asia wants to see whatever scrap of "authentic" culture remains there. Since none does, for the most part, these trips end up being exploitative: you're put into a giant group, sent to the hills to visit a tribal village which has become more like a zoo or circus, the natives dance around and sell souvenirs, and then you go back fully loaded with anthropological musings on the nativity of the human condition--or, more likely, disappointment. Chiang Mai is notorious for this. Seeking to avoid a carnival atmosphere, Fern and I booked an overnight trek to a Hmong village with the only agency in relatively obscure Nan and had a wonderful time. The highlight of this trip was definitely our strange encounter with the Yellow Leaf people. These are actual, real, modern-day hunter-gatherers. When we met them, they were sitting, a man and a woman, half-naked, under a lean-to of banana leaves. We gave them some bamboo tubes of pork and rice as an offering and then proceeded to have a cultural exchange which consisted of us staring at each other. I could wax sentimental about my feelings at this time, but I'll save it for meetings-in-person. It will suffice for me to say that this is high on my list of awesome things I've been able to do. I wish I could find out more about the Yellow Leaf people, but they are extremely secretive. Even their language is basically unknown, but it's beautiful and they sound like they're singing when they speak. Doesn't it make you wonder what has been lost to time?

The second highlight of the trip came when we witnessed two dogs, recently finished copulating, who, despite their strugglings, were unable to "disengage". Animals are funny.

After Nan, we visited Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city, though it hardly feels like one. Lots of temples, lots of nice restaurants, lots of peace and quiet, cheap: Chiang Mai is good. On our last afternoon before parting, as Fern was to begin her Thai massage course, we visited a monastery in the countryside to attend a Buddhist lecture. The lecture itself I don't remember, but afterward, the monk started spinning off some fascinating conspiracy theories. For example, he opined that Hurricane Katrina was karmic retribution for the Iraq war. I asked him what he made, then, of the tsunami in Indonesia, and I think he waffled and said global warming. He also explained that the US government keeps thousands of psychics employed in underground bunkers they aren't allowed to leave from which they conduct psychic warfare on our enemies--their offensive and defensive powers being the reason for our victory in the Cold War and continued dominance in the world. I believed him.

Leaving Fern to her Thai massage (and, by the way, I had one of these every day I was in Thailand--$5/hour!), I made my way further north, almost to the border with China, to the little hippie village of Pai. Other than being a laid back travelers' hangout, Pai is a launching point for multiple-day rafting trips to Mae Hong Son on the Burmese border, and I went specifically to book one of these. The agency I chose was run by a nice Frenchman who said when he first arrived, Pai didn't even have a bank. "Wow," I said, in my best young-person-listening-to-an-old-person-yak-about-the-past voice. Most of the other rafters were also French and, I thought, a little bit weird. Nonetheless, there's nothing like rafting all day, then sleeping in a camp on the side of the river, and then rafting all day the following day, too. The rapids weren't too impressive, but I had a nice time and returned to Chiang Mai refreshed and satisfied by my adventure.

From there, Air Asia came to the rescue again--$20 back to Bangkok, from which I bounced down to Kuala Lumpur. I managed to get a stopover in KL just to check it out, and I found it pretty boring. I saw the Petronas Towers, the colonial district, and even a major festival celebrating 50 years of Malaysian independence. A television reporter approached me there and asked if she could interview me. She wanted me, I gather, to say glowing things about Malaysia and the festival. Having only just landed an hour before, I told her I didn't know anything about Malaysia or the festival and suggested she find another white person who did. She was clearly flustered by this and clearly didn't care what I actually knew or said, but even while traveling, I am not prone to lending myself out as a tool of the corporate media (eat it, military-industrial complex!). Well, it's not like she offered me a free meal...

The one thing I did enjoy about KL was the metro. It's automatic, so you can stand at the very front of the train and stare through the window as you travel through the twisty tunnels. It's like one of those simulated rides they use to have (do they still have those?), except it's real, except it's a subway so it's tame and doesn't feel like much more than staring at a screen. I loved it.

For the sake of taking one day trip away from KL, I visited Melaka, a former Portuguese colonial, former Dutch colonial, former Chinese merchant city on the southwest coast. Melaka is famed (mostly to Singaporeans) for its "Baba" cuisine, which is like Chinese food but with spicy Southeast Asian influences. I had some, and it lives up. I also had local Malaysian coffee, which, I'm sorry to say, doesn't. Melaka also has a fort.

At the time, I said my trip around Southeast Asia was the best so far of my life, for many reasons--the people I met, the sights I saw, the food, the massages, the stunning scenery, that cafe owner in Hoi An who invited me to drink beer and watch the World Cup with him, etc. And I never even went to the beach! I would later say the same about South America. So do things keep getting better, or is it just my attitude that demands the constant surpassing of expectations? I don't know, my friends, but I do hope things continue to get better as they have done, especially as I approach my 30th birthday, as I am about to embark on yet another chapter in my personal odyssey, so that I am able to share ever more exciting experiences with you all, for which opportunity I am most grateful and most glad.

PS - Comments are welcome, but sanctimonious blatherings are not. This is my blog, and I cannot bear having my sardonic wit undermined. Have a nice day.

Angkor What?!

2008-04-18T00:24:00.003-08:00

I know so many people who fell in love with Cambodia when they went there, who claim it is their favorite country in Southeast Asia if not the world. They enthuse about the gorgeous countryside scenery, the friendliness of the people, the awe-inspiring antiquities, and so much more that made the country for them the most endearing of travel destinations.

I, my friends, am not one of them. But I won't dwell on the negative. Here's what happened:

As I related in my last Vietnam post, I crossed the border by river, trying to feel as much as possible like a young Martin Sheen. On the Vietnamese side, eager gangs of crazed children offered to change our money and sell us Cokes. On the Cambodian side, people were just sort of laying around. After receiving my sticker visa, we were off to the happiest city on Earth, Phnom Penh. Cruel sarcasm aside, I did find Phnom Penh to be a singularly depressing place. I think it's the only city I've been to with dirt roads and no street lighting to speak of--creepy. The main tourist attractions are Tuol Sleng Prison, a converted schoolhouse where the Khmer Rouge tortured to death anyone who wore glasses; and a lovely rural spot outside town known as the Killing Fields, where people were also tortured to death (often with the blunt ends of bamboo poles--nice) and buried in shallow graves. While walking around the Killing Fields, wondering what the hell I was doing there, I often stumbled across bits of cloth and bone poking up through the dust. Like I said, I'm positive many people like this city. I'm just not one of them.

My next stop was Battambang, the second city of Cambodia. Battambang is a bit more chilled out, as the Californians say, but still no street lighting and mostly crickets and tarantulas available for dinner. When I arrived, I was immediately acquired by a tout who escorted me to my intended hotel and then put me on the back of his motorbike (no helmet! no problem!) for a tour of the countryside. This was pretty cool. We set out in the afternoon, so we didn't have much time to travel the 50 km to our first stop: a large cave where the Khmer Rouge tortured people to death (can you detect a theme?). Not really being a genocide buff, I left pretty quickly with moto-dude for our next stop: Wat something or other (does the name actually matter?). En route, we got caught in a bitchin' thunderstorm. The rain came pounding down, drenching us both in seconds, powerful blasts of lightning striking the fields all around us. It being a particularly hot summer day in Cambodia, and having the kind of latent death wish necessary for this sort of travel, I didn't so much mind this. My driver, though, was terrified, and at one point jumped off his bike, looking around for cover. This was the Cambodian countryside, however--treeless and flat as a pancake--so there was no cover (evil laugh). Anyway, we did finally arrive at the temple (kudos to him for not just cancelling it). It was my first Khmer temple, and I was delighted by its awesome size, steepness, and romantic jungle setting. Despite the inclement weather, there was still a woman at the bottom selling soft drinks. Back in Battambang, my driver offered, for $5, to bring me to the "famous" bamboo railway. I'd heard about this before, though I'm still not exactly sure what the hell it is, but I was really attached to my $5, so I demurred.

The next day, I took an extremely packed and overburdened high-speed ferry down the river and across the enormous and picturesque Tonle Sap lake to Siem Reap. This took about seven hours, I think. On the Siem Reap side, I was collected ("for free") by a friend of my driver from Battambang, who brought me to the hotel of my choice ($3/night) on condition that I hire him for the duration of my stay at Angkor. This didn't seem unreasonable, since even I wasn't about to walk from temple to temple in this huge area, so we agreed on a fair price for my multiple-day visit. I even had time on the afternoon I arrived to take a quick sunset look at Angkor Wat itself, where it rained, and I got drenched, again.

OK, here's the thing: I cannot possibly describe this place adequately, not in what is supposed to be a briefish summary post of a previous year's trip. Angkor is huge, just huge, with all the beauty and mystery that could be packed into a lifetime of imagination. It takes days even to see the major sites cursorily, and if you're really that interested in them, I recommend you do some Wikipedia researching, ask me about it in person (I even have photos) or, best of all, go there yourself. For me, it was just a stop on the road, but truly it is (like Petra in Jordan) an experience of a lifetime. It is a bit weird to be admiring these monuments in dumbfounded awe while the descendents of their builders, who live in squalor among them, frantically try to sell you cold drinks ("one dolla!"). This strange contradiction is why I didn't like Cambodia. It's not that I don't like the people (though I am suspicious about the extent of their participation in the Khmer Rouge massacres, most of the perpetrators being still unpunished), it's just not a place in and about which I had good feelings. Mais, c'est la vie.

Angkor was also where I met my Japanese friend, Ryoko. I was quite impressed when I saw her tooling around the ruins on a bicycle--no mean feat in the Cambodian summer given the distances involved--and I wondered if she were, in fact, Japanese since, I figured, only a Japanese person would do this. Not only did she turn out to be Japanese, but she speaks several languages, has been all over the world (even Antarctica), and--perhaps her only ever lapse in judgment--agreed to join me the next day on a laborious walk around the walls of Angkor Thom, a mere 12 km, but under the silent gaze of the stone faces of my favorite Buddhist protector-god, Avalokiteshvara.

Actually, the day before we even did that, I casually mentioned to Ryoko that I was eager to see two Khmer sites hours away from Siem Reap in the jungle, one a pyramid called Koh Ker, the other a misty, jungle-enfolded temple-of-my-dreams called Beng Mealea, but that it was impossible because it was low season and there weren't any groups going. Well did I get my first taste of Japanese effectivity! Ryoko was staying at a Japanese hotel, where she somehow managed to round up six other people to go with us. The entire day trip, not including admission fees, cost $15/person (instead of the $125 or more it would have cost me alone). "Wow," I thought, duly impressed by this display of organization and group power. I was also excited by this turn of events because I ended up making Japanese friends right before going to Japan for a year. I ended up seeing Ryoko quite a few times--she even met me at my hotel the night I arrived in Tokyo--and twice she organized reunion dinners for the "Siem Reap members".

From Siem Reap, I returned to Phnom Penh, thus completing a circuit of the Tonle Sap, but more importantly to catch a cheap flight to Bangkok. There is a bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok, but it's probably the most notoriously awful bus journey on Earth, the mythical stuff of backpacking nightmares. Perhaps the situation has changed in 2008, but I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't. Take my advice: go Air Asia all the way.

And that's it for Cambodia. I'm sorry my descriptions of Angkor are lacking, but it's really too too much for me even to get into. I'd have to start using expressions like "churning the milk of the cosmos" and "the stunning reliefs of apsara dancers." So you're better off. Trust me. Go see for yourself.

Frequent flyer?

2008-04-16T21:59:00.002-08:00

I just read that most US airlines are going to start charging a $25 fee for additional checked bags after the first on all domestic flights, the bastards. So travelers, beware: it is becoming more important than ever to pack light. Their next policy change will be to institute a fee per pound for obese passengers. Naturally, this will impact the US market quite severely.

It seems noteworthy to mention that I have spotted numerous Orthodox Jews ambling around Rishikesh, hanging up signs. I can scarcely imagine what these bearded, black-hatted, betassled fellows, who appear to have stepped through a magic portal in Jerusalem, are doing.

It seems amusing to mention that, since my ashram closes at 9:30 pm, in order to get inside most nights, I have to basically break in by climbing onto the roof from the adjacent building.

Today or tomorrow, I'll be taking my final yoga class in India. My forward bends still suck, but I can just about grab my toes now. My chakrasana, however, is awesome: I think I'll be able to bend backward and grab my heels for full wheel pose before long. Then I can just roll to exotic destinations rather than paying expensive airfares. Sugoi!

Footnote

2008-04-16T01:57:00.002-08:00

Note to new readers or the easily confused: I am presently in India, not Vietnam. I was in Vietnam and Southeast Asia from May to July 2006. These are just recaps since I wasn't keeping a blog then.

Mr. Saigon

2008-04-16T00:36:00.005-08:00

The only reason I'm writing the third part now is it's raining like hell outside, which is pretty unusual, and I don't even want to imagine what that's going to do to the roads around here and their fine coating of dirt, mud, garbage, piss, and shit.

So away we go!

In dramatic fashion (one of the Trangs came to say goodbye and ran after the train waving as it pulled out), I departed Hanoi for Dong Ha on the edge of the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam. Sounds dangerous, doesn't it? Or at least like a good name for a dance club. I had arranged a tour at Harry's DMZ Cafe (or something), and Harry was there to collect me at the train station and put me on the back of a motorcycle (with helmet!) which careered at an alarming velocity from sight to site around the DMZ. God, that was a hot day. So hot... Phew... Anyway, we visited a piece of the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the extraordinary Vinh Moc tunnels, where hundreds of families lived during the war in conditions so horrible and requiring such resilience that I was convinced we never had a chance to beat these people; a reforested field pockmarked with bomb craters; a former US Army "base" (more like a shed) still surrounded by a dangerous mine field I chose not to run around cavorting in; and a beach.

The most interesting thing about the DMZ is probably how uninteresting it is. Most of it has been reclaimed and repurposed, as though it never existed. I speculated at the time that this was appropriate given the attitude of most Vietnamese people to the war: they seem simply to have forgotten it. Or they don't care. Or, in the case of young people, they don't know *and* they don't care. Though they suffered more, they seem to have gotten over it in a way Americans should have by now but haven't. I can't really say for sure, but it doesn't seem to occupy a traumatic region in their national imagination or to have produced a romanticized fiction of a collective loss of innocence that continues to fester, pustulating from time to time into such things as banal political rhetoric and Oliver Stone. Maybe it's a Buddhist thing, not worrying so much about the past, or a Chinese/practical/entrepreneurial thing, concentrating more on the future. In any case, I don't recommend a visit to the DMZ.

My next stop was Hue, the former imperial capital. I was in luck, because I chanced to stumble assbackward into the Hue International Festival, a multiday affair that began right when I arrived. I totally seriously recommend you try to attend this one day. It only happens in even-numbered years. So instead of wandering half-dazed around the Forbidden City-esque palace, pretending to be interested, I got to see the most amazing cultural performances from a dozen countries held in and around the palace: a series of spectacular shows, many running simultaneously, in a spectacular setting. I thought the Chinese opera (I think it was opera) was the best. But I like anything that combines singing and dancing with acrobatics and sword-fighting. The second night, I was offered my first "happy ending" at a massage parlor in Asia. It would not be the last.

Moving right along... my next stop, everyone's next stop in Vietnam, was the UNESCO-listed ancient Chinese trading town, Hoi An. Hoi An is quite small and comprised mostly of pretty, old Chinese-style mansions of the type hard to find (I can now say) in China itself. I even stayed in one for $3/night: The Ancient House Hotel or something. Hoi An was a convenient base for me to visit the also UNESCO-listed Cham ruins of My Son and the infamous village of My Lai, where the eponymous massacre took place and where I, trying, while staring at the present site's emptiness and placidity, to drink this in, drank tea.

The most popular things for tourists to do in Hoi An itself, other than (yawn) look at temples, are to take a cooking course (check) and to buy a f*ckload of tailor-made clothes (check). For some reason, the tailors there are famous and famously cheap. I probably had more fun, I reluctantly admit, picking out innumerable patterns, colors, and materials than I had doing anything else in Vietnam (so I obviously turned down the happy ending) and walked away with, I don't know, fifty shirts, twenty pairs of pants, underwear, coats, jackets, shoes, blah blah blah for quantitatively more money than I should have spent but relatively nothing in Western terms. I pleased the endless family that sold them all to me, anyway, because they took me out to dinner at a restaurant on the beach. The food was the most delicious I had in Vietnam. The next day, I woke up sick.

"No, no, I'm just hungover!" I cheerily told the tailoring family before groggily setting off for Danang. I skipped China Beach and went, after a brief museum visit, straight to the airport, where I lay uncomfortably across several seats for five hours before my cheap-ass flight to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City or HCMC).

There's really only one reason I wanted to visit Saigon. Can those of you who know me well guess what it is? I'll give you a minute to figure it out.

Still not sure? OK, one more minute.

Give up? It's so I could wake up in the morning, look around perplexedly, and say, a la Martin Sheen from Apocalypse Now!, "Saigon. I'm still only in Saigon." Anyone surprised?

I have to say, I quite liked North Vietnam more than South Vietnam. They do actually feel like different countries when you're there. The South, for example, seems more boisterous, commercial, and American. Ergo, I didn't like it. It's also flat and lacks the lovely undulating terrain of the North. I forgot to mention that my volunteer situation included a weekend trip to Ha Long Bay, the major (UNESCO!) attraction near Hanoi. It's basically a sea of giant karst formations that project out of the water in a lovely fashion. We did this trip entirely the wrong way--that is, in two days. Day one, we motored to Cat Ba Island, where we spent the night. On day two, we motored back. Lovely scenery both ways, but we missed out on our chance to explore the *really* lovely Cat Ba Island. But I, you shouldn't be surprised, sprang into action to correct this oversight as best I could. The night we arrived, I ran around to all the hotels until I found one where I could arrange with, basically, some guy to pick me up with his motorbike at 5 am and take me on an impromptu tour of the island. And this is what he did. Our first stop were some caves once used by the Viet Minh during the French colonial period. The guard guide guy there showed me around and then sung patriotic anthems until we asked him to stop. Then, we went through some villages to a national park. Scrambling up through the dense and wet foliage, we finally arrived at an observation tower. From the top, such an incredible view as can't be described in some pedestrian travel blog as this... those same upward-jutting karst formations, but these jutting upward from a jungly and misty landscape, themselves greened over and providing homes to squadrons of colorful birds and oddly-oriented trees and such. My favorite book as a child was Dr. Seuss's "On Beyond Zebra", and gazing at this bizarrely Seussian landscape, I myself felt it necessary to invent new letters in order to describe it. Ah, perhaps *that* explains all the wiggles and squiggles and marks! I was so pleased with this little tour (and, honestly, with myself for having thought of it), that I paid the driver double the price we'd agreed on (150,000 dong, or $10 US, but it's funnier to say "dong").

See what I mean? I so much preferred the North, that I'm still talking about it in the section about the South! So back to the South. Oh yeah, I arrived in Saigon with Ho Chi Minh's Revenge. So I went to the hospital, they stuck an IV in me, charged me hundreds of dollars, there's a long and boring story about how I finally after a year got my insurance company to pay for this and then, in HCMC itself, since there's nothing to see except the famous reunification palace (scene of the Saigon airlift), I just ate delicious food. I also took a day tour to see 1. the main temple of the weirdest religion you'll ever have heard of, Cao Dai (or Caodaism), and you'll really have to Google it to enjoy the full extent of its peculiarity, their Victor Hugo-venerating (!) doctrine impressively straining credibility even more than that of the Mormons; and 2. the Cu Chi tunnels, similar to the Vinh Moc situation, but without the prime beachfront location, but with an exhibit of gruesome, American-killing traps, including an AK-47 firing range (I didn't partake), but these tunnels have been widened for the comfort of fat, Western people so perhaps the effect is lost.

I left HCMC/Saigon on a bus that eventually became a boat. You see, my friends, I had found a novel way to cross the border into Cambodia: by river ferry! First, though, I had a three day tour of the Mekong Delta to enjoy (or, given the quantity of durian for sale in the Mekong's floating markets, suffer through). This tour wasn't that interesting, except I got to try snake meat, so I'm going to skip describing it. On my last legal day in Vietnam, I went to the top of sacred Sam Mountain, which is more like a hill, but lined all the way to the top, Chinese style, with souvenir shops and noodle shops. At the top, anticlimactically, is another noodle shop. From the top, though, you can see the Cambodian-Vietnamese border stand out starkly in the countryside: the Vietnam side appeared green and flourishing while the Cambodian side was brown and parched. Getting to Sam Mountain was something of an adventure in itself. Not because it was so far from my border town hotel (love those border towns!), but because not one person spoke one word of English there. Let this be a lesson to the would-be travelers among you: when you want to accomplish something in a foreign land where you don't speak the language and they don't speak yours, just keep frantically gesturing at people and repeating the same words until they give you what you want. Never fails (because they eventually get annoyed and want you to go away).

I woke up on my last morning in Vietnam, before taking the boat to Phnom Penh, to a strong and familiar odor. Stepping into the lobby, I saw that the hotel owner had made an offering at his little family shrine, naturally, to me, the most offensive and disgusting offering possible: a giant, spiky, stinky durian.

Ah, Vietnam.

Agent The Steve (Vietnam Part Two)

2008-04-15T23:44:00.014-08:00

I have breakfast at the same cafe every morning in Rishikesh: it has one of the best locations I've ever seen, overlooking the river and the bridge with its fascinating and endless stream of foot traffic. Also every day, I seem to get engrossed there in conversation with the citizens of the world for hours over coffee. Today, I didn't get out until almost 1 pm. So now you know one reason for my lackadaisical attitude toward posting lately. Another is the recurrent power cuts, which always seem to happen exactly as I'm finished writing a long post or email, even as I am maneuvering the mouse cursor toward the "save" button. Flash! It's gone! This is discouraging, and it makes me believe that Shiva doesn't want me publishing my news from the banks of his sacred river. Sorry, Shiva, but the public has a right to know... the second part of my adventures in Vietnam two years ago.

Here we go again. I'm saving after every sentence this time.

So. I returned from rice paddying in Sapa to join my volunteer assignment on the outskirts of Hanoi. You can Google "Vietnam Friendship Village" to learn more about the location: it's less a village than a small rehab and recreation facility for the victims of Agent Orange spraying by the US during the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam, without irony, as the American War). Arguments about its harmlessness notwithstanding (one general famously drank like a gallon of it or something), the children of the folks exposed to it are often born with physical and mental disabilities ranging from terrible to horrible. Some of them are so completely awful, I can't even bear to describe them. But the attitude and sheer joy of being alive of the less-challenged among them--those that can at least run around and play--is definitely better than mine. Every day, when we would arrive, they would barrel out of the compound and jump all over us. Literally: I frequently ended up pinned to the ground by their enthusiasm.

The work group was a mix of itinerant internationals and local Vietnamese students trying to pad their C.V.s. I got on quite well with the Vietnamese, who all spoke English pretty well. The foreigners I had less interest in, probably because the Vietnamese were more appreciative of my lame attempts to be entertaining. Usually, I do this by learning a few phrases in the local language and then turning them into pop songs, which I sing incessantly during working hours to pass the time. I've performed in Hebrew, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Japanese--to much acclaim. At least, to my own acclaim. The foreigners were also more reserved than the pushy, fun-loving, Starcraft-having-mastered Vietnamese, and I think I was the only one to connect with them. So although we slept on the floor in dark, windowless rooms, had one bathroom for over a dozen people, and ate the same meal of rice, "morning glory" (green spinachy stuff), and fried things every day for every meal, I had a great time living at the "Peace House" with my new workmates. I even regretted that we had ever gone to war against them.

The work itself consisted of carrying bricks around and weeding the garden. The village was constructing a new path through said garden for the enjoyment of the people there and was using us as the hard labor. Really, they probably could have hired a couple of local guys for next to nothing to build the thing in two days, so I gather our presence there for two weeks was more of an international cooperation exercise than anything else. I began to suspect this when I found out we had a three hour lunch break every day, which we took after about two hours of "work". I think they were afraid it was too hot and humid for the foreigners to handle much more than that. I was not arguing. One other American--also from New Jersey, as it turned out--did, however, have a problem with this. In typical American fashion, she complained constantly about our lack of effective leadership, organization, and productivity. I tried to appease her with song, but to no avail.

Back in Hanoi, I also had the opportunity to gorge on the local cuisine, which has become my favorite. I often snuck away from the evening's morning glory with a few of the Vietnamese in tow (I forced them) to search for "gỏi cuốn" (fresh spring rolls), dragon fruit, noodle soup, and cheap beer. Sidenote: isn't written Vietnamese so funny-looking? It's like someone took the Roman alphabet and, deciding it was a trifle dull, added little embellishments to it to liven things up: swirls, whorls, dots, squiggles, curves, and flourishes. I mentioned before my love of Vietnamese coffee (cà phê sữa), and I was in luck at the Vietnam Friendship Village. Just outside the gates, across from a dog meat restaurant, was a cafe where I happily overloaded on the stuff every mid-morning when I was feeling particularly discomfited by the objurgations (Word of the Day!) of the New Jersey girl. One night at the Peace House, the foreigners were called upon to prepare dishes from their own countries. Not wanting to horrify the locals with the sight of "American" food, I instead blended up an enormous batch of Spanish gazpacho with a blender I purchased myself for the occasion. Sadly, Vietnamese people don't like the taste of raw tomatoes--except for Trang; she was all over it. I should mention that almost all Vietnamese girls are named Trang; we had three or four, and I don't specifically remember which Trang it was. I'll have to ask my other workmate and friend, Trang. Even more sadly, the following day we returned from a hot day of work looking forward to some nice, cold soup only to discover that the house girl had dumped the rest out. I never forgave her for that, and I never will.

There are so many more interesting and delicious things I could relate to you about my time in Hanoi, like the time I saw John McCain's flight suit at the "Hanoi Hilton" and the other time I ate so much for dinner I didn't feel like green bean ice cream for dessert. But I think retrospective posts ought to be shorter than this, so I will stop here and continue the adventures, in greater brevity, in a new post.

Sorry for the delay

2008-04-14T01:04:00.002-08:00

I wrote a long second part to my Vietnamese adventures yesterday, but I accidentally deleted it before it could be posted. Demoralized, I haven't felt like doing any blogging since. I may do a rewrite tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, I can happily report that I can hold head stand for a minute and shoulder stand for at least five minutes. I also shaved my head again. Since I've got you, I might as well tell you my current schedule, which is as firm as the credit used for the plane tickets I've already purchased:

20 April - flight Delhi, India to Dubai
travel Dubai, Oman, Yemen

2 May - flight Sana'a, Yemen to Yerevan, Armenia
travel Armenia, Georgia, cross into Turkey, continue in westerly direction

~~figure out what to do between Turkey and Spain~~

30 July - flight Barcelona, Spain to New York JFK

Please plan your lives accordingly.

White Album

2008-04-11T02:35:00.002-08:00

Yesterday, I visited the former ashram of the Maharishi Maheshyogi, where the Beatles once stayed to practice transcendental meditation. I dangerously snuck in the back way (thanks, Chelsea!) so I wouldn't have to bribe the guard. It's a huge, huge place--almost a mini-city--that was once self-sustaining but is now abandoned and slowly being consumed by the forest: a vision of the future? The site is peppered with weirdly-shaped meditation huts, including the little cells where John, Paul, George, and Ringo wrote the White Album, so it is said. Strange but spookily beautiful place.

That's all I feel like writing today.

Caesura

2008-04-09T20:21:00.001-08:00

Due to family matters I will not be posting for a few days because I don't feel like it please don't worry about it be back soon.

Revenge is a dish best served cold

2008-04-07T22:54:00.002-08:00

This is a funny thing I forgot to, but must, mention. When I was in the STA Travel office in Delhi, I noticed a new slogan they're using on their posters:

"Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

Other than being, in my opinion, a rather poor choice for a student travel company with nervous parents to placate (better to die..?), this is a famous Klingon proverb, so there's obviously a Star Trek geek in the upper echelons of the STA marketing department.

They would have been better advised to choose this quote of Kahless the Unforgettable: "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible."

Q'apla!

Tour of Duty: Vietnam

2008-04-07T22:13:00.002-08:00

This will be the first in a brief series of retrospective posts written to catch my readers up on the first half of my two-year sabbatical.

In mid-May, 2006, I arrived in Hanoi after a long flight from EWR via Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian Airlines lives up to its "5 star airline" self-promoting, too. Great service, great food, attractive flight attendants: just like in the advertisements. I had arranged for an airport pick-up--usually I do this at the beginning of a long trip to help ease me into the parallel universe I call Travel Land--and fortunately my driver was there, with sign, to whisk me away to my dormitory bed downtown, so cheap I don't even remember how much it cost.

Hanoi is wonderful. I could tell right away. Sure, every street is a river of motorbikes, but it's a tranquil river, nonetheless, and when you learn the secrets of its flow, crossing the street is not a problem. Central Hanoi is where most travelers hang out. French colonial structures in various conditions of disrepair lend this quarter a quasi-romantic atmosphere lacking in most jumbo Asian cities. Food is everywhere. Cheap, delicious food.

Vietnamese food is so good, describing it daunts my pathetic writing skills. In most places, you're served whatever dishes you order alongside a tray of various seasonings, sauces, pastes, and always a lime or two. It's up to you how salty, spicy, citrusy, or fishy you want to make your meal; clearly, the Vietnamese have finessed eating into an art. My habit was to ineptly dump on a little bit of everything. And the coffee! Well, I'd had Vietnamese coffee many times before visiting its motherland. But! I never had it cold, and that simple difference made all the difference. The fact that it cost, like, 5 cents instead of $3.00 also helped. They give you a glass of ice cubes with a little percolator thingy on top (I bought a percolator thingy as a souvenir, so everyone come to my house for Vietnamese coffee when I get back, please). From the percolator thingy, the coffee, uh, percolates into the glass, which also contains a thick layer of condensed milk (so obviously, this stuff can kill you). You then mix it up, drink, and enter your heavenly bliss. But there are some things on the menu I have to admit avoiding. Vietnamese people eat the following things which I do not eat: dogs, cats, snakes (the heart being especially prized, the blood drunk by couples on dates), chicken embryos, duck placentas, various insects, and, the most horrible of all, durian fruit, which smells like a rotting corpse from 100 feet away. Only the wonderful dragon fruit is capable of compensating for this bane of banes.

Hanoi is a nice place for a stroll. There are several lakes, one of them enormous, and there are pretty little temples everywhere. And ice cream. One of the premier attractions is the Temple of Literature. Of course, I made a beeline for that. I mean, what a novel idea! A Temple dedicated to my greatest love! I shouldn't have gotten too excited, though, because it was just a Confucian academy.

I only spent a few days in Hanoi before taking my first overnight sleeper train ever up to the hill station of Sapa. On the train, I met an enlightened backpacker from Canada who seemed like a nice guy. We were both in the market for a hill tribe trek, so we decided to do it together. Boy, did I get sick of him real fast! The hill tribe trek was good, though. What I wanted to see, I saw: gorgeously green terraced rice fields. We spent the night in a village near a waterfall, and I helped a bit with the rice replanting (tedious work--I can't believe these people spend their lives doing it). One old, bent, sun-wrinkled woman I saw working the fields turned out to be in her thirties. Yikes. On the way back to Sapa town, I took a dive and received my famous Vietnam injury. The exact cirumstances are embarrassing, so I'm going to skip them. Anyway, we rearrived with time to wander around town. Mr. Canada suggested we visit Ba Ca market the next day, which sounded good to me, but for that night, I wanted to avoid him, so I went to the bustling Catholic church. It was strange to see all the traditionally-garbed Montangards inside. These people are Catholic? What odd legacies of colonialism there be. Anyway, it turned out to be a wedding service. When the couple came in, they ended up standing only inches away from me. The groom even handed me (why me?) his camera to take their photo. I obliged. On the way back to my hotel, some cute Vietnamese girls, who the day before were tribally dressed for the tourists' benefit, asked me to take them to a bar to play pool, but I evaded their little trap.

The next day, I went to the market. What can I say? It was a market like any other in the developing world: noise, dirt, fruit, vegetables, cheap clothes, junky toys, miscellanious animal abuse, and loads of annoying souvenir hawkers. Haven't been to one? Go. They're all the same. As part of the market tour, we also got to visit the Vietnam-China border. As you know, I like border towns, so it was exciting for me to gaze across the river to the enormous, kanji-bespeckled Middle Kingdom that stretched, so I thought, into infinity. "Next year!" I shook my fist at China, "I'll be seeing you!"

Then, I went back to Hanoi. To be continued.

Daily Life in Rishikesh

2008-04-07T22:07:00.002-08:00

I have already delineated a program for myself. From 8:00 am - 9:30 am at Omkarananda Ashram, where I am now staying, I have an easy class of Hatha yoga with Murti. For the rest of the day, nothing, or maybe I will try to tolerate my way through a spiritual teaching here and there. At 6:00 pm, I have Ashtanga yoga with the delightfully effeminate Kaman. That runs for more than two hours and is really intense. I've never done Ashtanga before, so it was fast and confusing, but I caught on quickly enough. I even did the headstand posture for the first time. That's my schedule. I may otherwise try to fit in some Ganges rafting or a Reiki class. Life is good here. And cheap. Cheap is a synonym for good.

Escape from New Delhi, Part Two

2008-04-06T23:32:00.002-08:00

日本人、思い出す思ってないでください。土曜日にカナダ人を会った。話していると日本で住んでいったと習った。すごいな！いつも僕は日本ために懐かしい気持ちしている。日本料理などが大ほしいです。愛する。ところで。。。

I think I paid for my scams, friends. Karmically. You see, every bus ride in [the world?] has the potential to become the Bus Ride from Hell, and I think I was scammed myself when I was overbooked onto the overnight hippie bus from Delhi to Rishikesh. I met a nice Canadian girl who lived in Japan for the last three years, so we had lots to chat about. Unfortunately, we were among the last to board the bus. So she got a broken seat, and I got... no seat! Instead, they put me into the driver's cabin up front, on a bench, where, typically, they later squeezed in eight more Indians. I expressed my dismay to the bus attendant, to the effect that I paid for a seat and would find it difficult to sleep sitting upright with no leg room on a "bench" to which he replied--"Sleep OK! No problem!" You will not be surprised by now when I tell you, my friends, that I wanted to kill this man.

To be honest, I didn't suffer too badly. I think that bus ride in Nepal steeled me for anything. I was able to switch eventually to the also broken seat next to the Canadian girl, but that one was on a tilt, so it kept tipping me into her whenever there was a bump, and I don't think she appreciated that. Finally, the extended family in the back cleared out and I actually had a place to lay down. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived in Rishikesh. I had the foresight to call ahead to an ashram for accommodation, but it turned out to be full until Tuesday. The manager/yoga teacher invited me to sleep, as a stopgap measure, on a wooden platform inside the giant yoga room or on a bed squeezed into the dirty, narrow kitchen. I picked the kitchen but then later found a hotel and splurged for a $2.50 room with private bath. I am so spoiled sometimes.

I met Sahara, the dude from New Jersey who taught one of my yoga classes at Rutgers and who's served as my contact in Rishikesh since I've been in India. Really nice guy! He might introduce me to his spiritual teacher, ShantiMayi, a Vedic saint, and possibly a nearly 100 year-old yoga teacher. He also told Canadian Stacie and I where to go for illegal beer. Which we did. This morning, slightly hungover, I had my first yoga class at Omkarananda Ashram. Hatha style, so I was familiar with the asanas. Good stuff.

I may not have much to write about for the next two weeks, while I'm just hanging around Rishikesh doing yoga. I'll try to come up with some lies to tell or possibly do retrospective posts on my excursion to Southeast Asia, May-July 2006 and my year in Japan immediately following. How does that sound, readers?

Subscribe for only $0.00/month

2008-04-06T06:01:00.001-08:00

I added a subscription gadget to the left-hand pane, so you can add my blog to your news reader if you like. Be informed the moment I do... something!

Escape from New Delhi

2008-04-05T21:18:00.004-08:00

Well, friends. I've finally made it out of not-so-bad-actually-quite-cool-but-I-still-didn't-want-to-spend-nine-days-there Delhi. Let's turn back the clock, though, so I can tell you chronologically what I've been up to.

Each morning for the last week, basically, I went to STA Travel only to be denied an ISIC card for lack of proper proof that I'm a student. Am I actually a student? I'm not sure. But Rutgers is willing to admit that I am (after charging me $2000), so that's good enough for me. I had to drink lots of coffee to keep myself in a good mood, because each denial, deferral, and delay meant I had to spend another day in the city. OK, no problem! as the Indians are constantly telling me. I have consistently managed to find something worthwhile to do.

One day, the same day I went to the Syrian embassy and learned that a visa costs Americans a whopping $250, I also visited a friend of a colleague from Rutgers, and a Rutgers Ph.D. herself, Giti. I had to hire a taxi for the day to do this, since she lives in one of Delhi's outlying satellite communities (which are divided, futuristically, into "sectors" and usually called, somewhat ironically, "colonies"). We chatted nostalgically and literarily for awhile over tea. How civilized!

The next day, after STA denied me again, I was so depressed I had my nails done and then wandered around unenthusiastically. I practically lived in Barista and Cafe Coffee Day this week.

Remembering that another colleague had given me another contact, I arranged to meet this contact, a young Sociology student nicknamed Shubho, at Delhi University. There, I strolled with him around the very nice campus environs, which included passing by the former garden of the Lord-Governor, where Mountbatten romanced Edwina, I am told. How civilized!

The next day, STA turned down my request for an international student ID, and I was thinking about plotting revenge, when I realized I hadn't yet visited the Baha'i prayer hall, which looks like the Sydney Opera House but shaped like a lotus flower about to blossom instead of whatever the hell the Sydney Opera House is supposed to be (sails? a jack-knifed palm tree?). Upon exodusing, I was assaulted by the usual motley of rickshaw drivers. I asked how much to Humayan's Tomb.

Rickshaw-wallah: 100 Rs.

I: 30 Rs.

R-w: OK, but we stop at one shop.

I: If we're stopping at one shop, then you take me for free to Humayun's Tomb and then to the Museum of Modern Art after that.

R-w: Ok, but then we stop two shops.

I: Fine.

...we depart and time passes...

R-w: If you visit one more shop, I take you back to Connaught Place.

I: Ok, but you also pay me 50 Rs.

R-w: Ok, but you visit two shops.

I: Two shops? Then you pay me 100 Rs.

R-w: No, 50 Rs.

I: Ok, I take metro.

R-w: Ok, 100 Rs.

...time passes, I visit museum, see nice photography exhibit, etc., it inexplicably rains, we visit more shops, I buy nothing, we head to Connaught Place...

I: How many shops do you know?

R-w: About 15.

I: Ok, tomorrow, you meet me my hotel 10:30, you take me to shops, we split everything.

R-w: Ok!

I: How much can I make?

R-w: I think you can earn 500 Rs.

I: Sweet.

You see, my friends, I have figured out India: this is a country full of scams. Everyone seems to have one, or more, running at the same time. As a tourist, I am subject to the minor ones, really. Regular Indian people have to deal with corrupt police, venal officials, pushy and deceptive salespeople, incompetent or unreliable employees, two-faced holy men, price-gouging for everything from bananas to real estate, and, at a higher level, more sublime scams like the Delhi metro, the Commonwealth Games, and The World is Flat. It's like a web of scams at the civilization level. You can complain about this, but complaints aren't going to dislodge the combined scamming of a billion people. The only way to survive is join in the scamming yourself.

So I was quite happy to be carted from shop to shop all day, getting a free guided tour of Delhi in the process, honing my haggling skills, and comparing prices for things I had no intention of buying--each shop paying my rickshaw driver 100 Rs. as part of a scam to lure in tourists to buy handicrafts and carpets at marked-up prices, and my rickshaw driver paying me as part of our scam against them (and mine against him--finally I get the upper hand with the rickshaw-wallahs!). Actually, I can recommend this scam as a great way to see Delhi for free and without having to deal constantly with transport issues. They will be happy to take you to all the sights, since that's where the souvenir shops are located, too. Of course you can buy things if you want--some of the things they sell are genuinely fine--but make sure you arrange to split the 5% commission your rickshaw-wallah receives on any expensive items. The salespeople at these shops tend to be very pushy (one told me straightaway when I told him to stop following me, "OK, but you should buy something"), but it's a good test of patience and resilience. Also, it's fun to listen to the smooth-talking carpet salesmen (and these guys deserve their legendary status) discuss the history and merits of their carpets at great length over tea. I even learned enough about them to start demanding the giant 9x6, 426 knot, naturally dyed yak wool on cotton pieces from Kashmir. After visiting a number of shops, mulling over my options, and negotiating hard for a good deal, I finally settled on a crimson yak carpet with an ornate tree of life design in the center for $1600, tax and tariff free, inclusive of door-to-door overseas delivery. Satisfied with both selection and price, I bought the carpet (in my imagination) and thanked the salesman for his time.

And, I forgot to mention, in the morning my ISIC scam finally came to fruition, as well. After the English graduate secretary emailed STA Travel for the third time with a letter alleging my studentness, they finally believed me (it's true, right?) and issued me the coveted, blue discount card. Then, I was finally free to leave the city, about which I will write more, presently.

The rest of this post was lost in an Internet service interruption. I will reproduce it at another time.

Sorry, sir!

2008-04-02T06:15:00.003-08:00

1. I can't get a Syrian visa from the Syrian embassy in Delhi, because I'm American. So my application has to receive special clearance from Damascus. This may take anywhere between one day and never. Sorry, sir!

2. If I am granted a visa, also since I am American, I can only get a single entry, contrary to what I've heard elsewhere, which means I cannot visit Lebanon and then return to Syria to go on to Turkey. I would have to fly to Beirut and its semi-functioning airport and then enter Syria from Lebanon, assuming the border is open. Or skip Lebanon. Sorry, sir!

3. If I am granted a visa, also since I am American, I have to pay a fee of $100 PLUS 6000 Rs. ($150), which seems like an insane amount of money, reciprocity or no, since the visa is only good for two weeks. Sorry, sir!

4. I cannot book a flight to either country until I get the Syrian visa.

5. There are some special discount fares available to both Beirut and Damascus for exactly the day I'd like to leave India, but they are student fares, so I need a valid student ID to book them. Sorry, sir!

6. My international student ID expired on March 31, 2008. STA Travel in Delhi refuses to renew it, book my flights, or be at all flexible or helpful in any way. One more time: my ISIC card expired THREE DAYS AGO. Sorry, sir!

7. I contacted Rutgers, hoping I could get a letter or something emailed to STA Travel, which said an email would do. The Graduate English secretary kindly sent them such an email after I paid Rutgers a $2000 re-registration fee ("I" meaning concerned interests on my behalf).

8. STA Travel now insists that an email will not do. I need a scanned image of a signed and stamped letter (stamped!? is this "Brazil"?). I pleaded to no avail. Friends, all I want is avail. I used to live near Avail! But now avail is lost to me. Sorry, sir!

9. I asked STA Travel if I could book my flight over the phone, because I have no other reason to stay in Delhi, except to wait for my Syrian visa, which I can collect anytime once my application is approved. They said, "No." They cannot take credit card numbers over the phone. Email? No. They have to swipe my card in person. I have to admire their security precautions, though, this being India (apologies, friends), I am quite surprised by them. They even seem unbribable. Sorry, sir! They said I could leave cash with them and, if I ended up not booking a flight, they would refund it to me. I looked at them askance.

10. I cannot book a flight until I get a Syrian visa. STA will not let me book a special discount flight until I have an ISIC card. I can't get an ISIC card until Rutgers sends documentation to STA that STA finds acceptable. I can't book the special discount flights outside of Delhi, therefore, I cannot leave Delhi until I book a flight. I am stuck in Delhi.

Postscript: I hope everyone who read yesterday's post noticed the date. Seems half and half from the reactions I've been getting.

My final blog entry

2008-04-01T07:45:00.002-08:00

My friends, the most unexpected thing happened to me today. With very little to do and a completely diminished interest in sightseeing, I opted to spend the day reading in one of Delhi's "gardens". Naturally, all the shady places were occupied by extended families and kinship groups, so I had to settle for a partially-shaded, sun-dappled bench by the main thoroughfare. Naturally, I was too distracted to read. Not long after I sat down, a guy dressed like a holy man--who turned out to be a holy man--sat down beside me. I have to admit: I did not want to talk to him. He had with him one of those little holy man baskets they all carry around, with the assorted paraphernalia of extortionate blessings. So I kept my head in my book ("Romance" by Barbara Fuchs), hoping he would ignore me. He didn't. But he didn't offer to sell me a blessing, either. It turned out that he spoke English perfectly (normally, the holy men are only able to say "money! money!") and just wanted to chat. It further turned out that he used to be a university professor--already an austere enough life, I reckon--before relinquishing his post to become an ascetic. At first, I totally didn't believe any of this and kept waiting for the scam to kick in. But he never brought up the subject of money, except to say that he only begs from Indians, because he doesn't think foreigners should give money to holy men if they aren't Hindu or Indian themselves. To be honest, this only made me more suspicious, but that was the last any mention of it was made. Really, the conversation was quite interesting, one of the most interesting I've had for as long as I can remember. We talked about academic life, India, the meaning of it all--the usual sorts of things you might expect. We talked for so long, we eventually got a chance to move into the shade when space opened up. I think he appreciated the opportunity either to talk to a foreigner or to speak English or maybe just to have a sophisticated conversation with anyone who didn't dismiss (or revere) him as just another holy man. In fact, he went to great lengths to downplay his "holy man" status, and eventually I felt like I could have been talking to anyone. Then he did the most unexpected thing: he invited me to join him, if only for awhile, in his nomadic holy man life. Of course, I was taken aback by this, and my mind was already coming up with excuses when I suddenly blurted out, "Yes!" I did start hemming and hawing a bit, but he was extremely reassuring about all of my reservations. Above all, I have an extremely good feeling about him, and I've come to trust my instinct more and more lately (poor judgment on overnight buses notwithstanding). I don't actually know what this means, how it will work, or what he expects me to wear (not gold and saffron rags, I hope), but I decided it's an opportunity I shouldn't pass up. I have plenty of time left before I'm supposed to be home--if I even decide to come home--and I've always been fascinated by asceticism, the itinerant, and holy monk vow of poverty guys. He's even given me a "spiritual" name already: Satrang, which means "rainbow" (it rained this morning in Delhi, and we both remembered seeing a rainbow in the sky, hence...). Unfortunately, my friends, if I'm going to do this, it means cutting myself off from my usual comforts of life. I want this experience to be as real and meaningful as possible, since I may never get another chance, and that means trying hard--and it will be especially hard for me--not to be a hypocrite about it, like all the smoking, drinking, drug-abusing, scumbag backpacker hippies I'm currently surrounded by. So this will be my final blog entry. Thank you all so much for following me in spirit on my adventures, and I do hope we meet again, someday, in real life. Pray for me, my friends. I will surely be doing the same for you.

In peace and love,

Satrang

Everything I ever wanted to know about sex, and I'm not afraid to ask.

2008-03-30T06:00:00.003-08:00

I am curious about the gender demographics of my readership. I don't know why; but please tell me which of the following two categories best describes you: female, male. I have added a new poll for this purpose. If you are one of my transsexual, transgendered, or hermaphrodite friends, sorry, I didn't know I had any!

Old Delhi

2008-03-30T05:42:00.002-08:00

Yesterday, I went to New Delhi. Today, I visited Old Delhi. Makes sense, right?

Unfortunately, I can't really make my day sound interesting. I walked into Old Delhi from the New Delhi train station (which is located, strangely, in Old Delhi). My first stop was Raj Ghat, where Gandhi was cremated, thus bringing to an appropriate closure my Gandhi-related sightseeing. I then walked further on to the site of Jawaharlal Nehru's pyre. In the movie, he's Gandhi's friend with the hat. Later, he becomes the first prime minister, and his family, which he renames Gandhi (?), continues to rule India raj-like until, basically, now. Just about all of them were assassinated and have memorials along the river, but it was hot today so I didn't visit them all. After this, I went to the Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque. To my delight, I was able to ascend to the top of one of the minarets for a view of the city. People, Delhi is really, really big! I think the population is 16 godzillion. It was all concrete chaos to the horizon. Strangely beautiful in a way. In a way. Next up was the obligatory Red Fort, which I also felt let down by (given that tickets, as at Purana Qila, cost 100 Rs. for foreigners). I have decided that most of these monuments are less for historical interest than they are giant, well-maintained parks for Indian families and young lovers to escape to, given the dearth of green spaces in the cities here and since Indians only have to pay 10 Rs. (a quarter) to get in. So people-watching opportunities abound, but personally I'd rather not pay $2.50 a pop for them. I left the Red Fort to wander around the market area outside, and when that got old (quickly), I took the amazingly modern and lovely metro back down to Connaught Place so I could sit in Barista's and read. Which I did. That's it! Not exactly the stuff of epic-romance. I'll try and up the body count tomorrow (snap! double-entendre!).

I promise not to pun on the word "Delhi"

2008-03-29T06:28:00.003-08:00

The day after visiting the Taj Mahal THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MONUMENT TO LOVE EVER BUILT (and the only one, to my knowledge) I took a bus from Agra over to the UNESCO site of Fatehpur Sikri. I went because I could not resist the description "Mughal ghost town". I went because I had nothing else to do that day. I went because Kajori told me to, and Kajori will not be denied.

Fatehpur Sikri was built to be Akbar (Ahkbar? Akbhar? Ahkbhar?) the Great's personal capital city in the 16th century. Like most private capital ventures of this sort, however, it failed for lack of long-term planning (that is, for lack of available water sources). Strategically located--wait for it--on a hill, the red sandstone city lords it over the modern SLT of Fatehpur Sikri below, where tour guides mate and breed. I was quite stunned by the state of the city's preservation--quite good! The main mosque is ginormous, its entrance "Arch of Victory" possibly the largest arch of victory in Asia (and therefore the world? Europe, hello?). In the city itself, one cannot help feeling it was a pity the site didn't last, given the exquisiteness of the decorative carvings on many of the structures and the intriguing architectural styles employed throughout. I was intrigued. One lone guard tower is studded with elephant tusks.

I only stuck around FS for a few hours, because I had a train to catch to Delhi, a train I barely made. You see, I had arranged with a rickshaw driver to take me to a bunch of shops around Agra. The deal was, each shop would pay him 100 Rs. just for bringing me there to browse, and he would split that with me. I learned of this neat little scam from the Swiss guy I met in Hampi, I think. Unfortunately, I didn't get back to Agra in time for the execution, so I'm going to have to work it again here in Delhi, where I am now (in time, but not in the course of this narrative--hang on). Anyway, when I got to the train station, I met a French girl going to the same place. We had adjacent seats, so we chatted. She's studying Arabic in Cairo. We were also seated with two Chinese girls studying Hindi in Agra. What am I studying? English, in America! Anyway, the French girl was cool and is the first French person I've met who laughs at jokes and even my bad French accent, which I adopted for her amusement for the rest of the trip. An Indian guy joined us partway through the trip and ended up inviting me to visit him in Amritsar even though the first thing I said to him when he introduced himself was "Please don't ask me 20 questions!"

Upon reaching Delhi, I found a cheap dormitory by following the Japanese. That is, I looked for a hotel with a name rendered in katakana, where I knew I'd find a low price and reliable dormmates. And I did! A ten bed dorm with one Japanese guy and no other people (and a hot shower! my first in India! even though I don't need it!) for only 150 Rs. a night. Score! Everything in India closes at like 10 pm, annoyingly, so it was difficult for me to find a place to drink with the French girl. But she was flying back to Cairo the next morning--spending the entire night at the airport--so it seemed proper to get her drunk to make things go more smoothly. At last, I found an SLR that was willing to illegally sell us bottles of beer wrapped in plastic bags. Cool.

The next day, I decided to check out New Delhi. I'm an idiot, you see, and didn't even realize I'd be arriving here at the beginning of the weekend, so now I have to wait until Monday for the Syrian embassy to open. But I'll make the most of it. Everyone I've met has told me that Delhi is smelly, but so far, I think it's really an OK place. The seedy neighborhood where I'm staying is dirty and crowded as hell, but it's more (God forgive me for using this word) authentic than sucky Thamel in Kathmandu. Thamel sucks! And New Delhi is lovely enough, built at the inhuman scale of most planned capitals (except Fatehpur Sikri), but not unwalkable (ahem, for me). Kajori, I walked from Main Bazaar near the New Delhi train station to Connaught Place, then down to the Parliament area, further along to the Gandhi memorial, and then from there to India Gate and finally to the definitely-not-worth-100 Rs. Purana Qila fortress. In Crocs! Please tell these people how awesome I am for doing that. They'll never understand.

En route, I bought a copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Mediterranean Europe at the truly fab Oxford Bookstore. Luckily, the store had a toilet, because I had to run to it after looking up the prices I should expect once I *get* to Mediterranean Europe.

The Gandhi memorial deserves explication at greater length. In Hindi, it's called the Gandhi Smriti. "Smriti" reminds me of "smrt", my favorite Czech word, which means death. This is strangely appropriate since the memorial is located at the site where Ben Kingsley was assassinated. Lame Richard Attenborough jokes aside, the memorial and accompanying exhibit is one of the most top quality monuments I've ever seen. The rooms Gandhi occupied during his last 144 days are perfectly preserved. Adjoining them are several long corridors of beautifully done (if loooooong) photo-accompanied narrative of Gandhi's life, accomplishments, final days, and legacy. Upstairs is a remarkable multimedia exhibition that allows you to do such things as imitate Gandhi's seating postures, checking yourself against the real thing; light up a "tower of castelessness" by joining hands with people; and experience what salt feels like (or something). No, really, this thing has high production values. I would have loved it when I was a kid or if I were drunk. Someday, I'll take all seven of *my* kids to see it. It's really cool! Finally, outside, a paved path, complete with raised concrete footprints, follows the route Gandhi took on the day of his martyrdom, ending at a modest stone pillar. The guards yelled at me when I tried to touch it. I was genuinely moved and impressed by the Gandhi Smriti and spent quite a long time there, enjoying its informativeness and historic resonance as well as its beauty and serenity. When I learned that this whole affair is run by the government, I had to run to the toilet *again*!

My feet were sore by the time I got to Purana Qila, which is not worthy of explication, so I got an autorickshaw back to Connaught Place, the double-circus of high-end boutiques and cafes in the north part of New Delhi. I asked the driver to bring me to the subway. Next to the subway, to my delight, was a Subway! I immediately went in and ordered a 6" veggie pattie on hearty italian. I picked out an Israeli couple and sat down with them for a nice chat. We're going to meet later for beers. In fact, I'm running late, so I'd better finish up. Don't you think this is too much detail?

I am New7Wondersful!!!!!!!

2008-03-27T08:16:00.005-08:00

Hey chumps, I just realized that as of today, I (unlike you) have seen all the "new" seven wonders of the world, which are:

Angkor Wat*
Chichen Itza
Colosseum
Great Wall of China
Maccu Picchu
Petra
Taj Mahal

So allow me to take this opportunity, unusual for me, humble guy that I am, to BOAST!

BOAST!

There. Thank you. Sorry, my friends. You aren't really chumps. Bye.

*Angkor Wat is not actually an official wonder. Neither are the Pyramids, as you can see. But I've seen them both, and they certainly kick Christ Redeemer's ass. I do not acknowledge that so-called "wonder" (more like.. plunder!). For what it's worth, I saw a bigger one in Cochabamba anyway.

Wow wow wow part 2

2008-03-27T07:00:00.002-08:00

My initial reaction seemed to need a post of its own, so as to convey the acuteness of the feeling. It isn't often anymore that I have an awe-gasm when I see something supposedly "amazing." I had one when I saw the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Choquequirao, Peru qualified. I think I had two at Yosemite. And today I had one when first I saw the Taj, which we've all seen a million times, and those million times prepare you for the real thing NOT AT ALL.

I think it's appropriate that many tourists have their photo taken with their arm raised and fingers pinched above the Taj, so they will appear to be dangling it like an ornament. It *is* an ornament! But is it really an ornament of love? Mumtaz was dead, Mr. Jahan, and it could only have served your own ego to build such a thing, and it is only poetic justice that you were imprisoned at the end of your life, only able to gaze at it from afar (and not do much else). What I realized when being blinded by this miracle of marble--honestly, I couldn't look straight at it--was that it might be India's last great monument. Wasn't it built at the zenith of Mughal civilization, the last great Indian suzerainty? Didn't the Mughal empire start to fall apart shortly thereafter, only to be conquered by the British, who stuck arguably fetching statues of Victoria everywhere? Doesn't it always happen this way?

But forget all that Jared Diamond nonsense. The thing is spectacular in ways I can't describe after a beer, and it was worth paying $18 to get in--oh wait, they made a mistake and only charged me $6. Still worth it! And they give foreign tourists a free bottle of water so we don't dehydrate and die in the vast gardens out front--good thing, because I passed more than one Indian (I counted three, actually) taking a piss in them. Real nice, guys! India's most important monument and one of the most famous in the world--your own national heritage of which you should be proud--and you piss all over it! I think they worked there on the restoration team. I yelled at two of them and even tried to embarrass one. Didn't work. So I just told the police and assume nothing will be done. Sigh.

So the Taj. How to describe. Google "Taj Mahal" and see for yourself. See how lazy I am getting with this blog thing? Didn't my posts used to employ extravagant verbosity and literary flair--at moments? OK, it's like a giant wedding cake with lots of yummy frosting and highly detailed colored icing piped on by a pro (and a Muslim pro at that). I sat on a bench for two hours staring at it, eating it in my imagination. Then I left and ate real food, Indian food, which in India they call Indian food. Seriously!

Oh yeah, I also saw Agra Fort.

Wow wow wow

2008-03-27T06:58:00.000-08:00

I saw the Taj Mahal today! Wow!

Slum Lord

2008-03-26T01:12:00.002-08:00

In overcoming the petty adversities of daily life, I find it useful, howsoever trite, to reflect on the miseries of others--not for the sake of schadenfreude, mind you, but so, when socks go missing, plans unexpectedly change, or bags are stolen, I spare myself the indignity of freaking the f*ck out. In that spirit, I signed up for a day-long tour of Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia, and the heart of Mumbai. I read about Dharavi in a few places, including The Economist, so I wanted to have a look for myself. Luckily, a company called "Reality Tours" makes this possible. I have to admit, the last "reality tour" I went on was a Seinfeld tour of New York City guided by the real-life Kramer. I wonder if the Mumbai branch is aware of this connection. Anyway, a slum tour in 96 degree heat is probably the last thing most of you rich people would want to do, but Dharavi is actually a fascinating place. Contrary to most slums--which are ruled by the triumvirate of crime, substance abuse, and desperation--Dharavi boasts an air, however fecund, of prosperity. Residents of the slum collect plastic trash from all over the city and process it for recycling; they engage in various kinds of manufacturing; they make pottery and cook up pappadams. Altogether, Dharavi has an economy of $665 million/year. It's still a dirty, stinky, makeshift, claustrophobic slum (though with nary a plastic bottle in sight), but it's a slum with power and dignity. The people there have won the right to their homes and businesses, all of which squat on government land, and the city even provides water and electricity. All is not well, though. The Indian government would like to eliminate all of its urban slums, including Dharavi, and redevelopment schemes have already begun. This raises interesting ethical questions--should the slum dwellers be left as they are, poor but productive and with a strong community, or would they be better off shunted into new apartment blocks where their quality of life would increase but their industry possibly suffer? My friends, I am grateful that it is not left to me to be answerable to such questions.

After visiting Dharavi, I planted myself in one of the Starbucks-esque cafes sprouting up in Indian cities and which I have grown shamelessly to love. Finding myself next to an Asian woman, I asked her if she was Japanese. No.. American, as it turns out. When she produced a Lonely Planet guide to India, I became excited, wide-eyed, dare I say lustful. Tongue dry, palms moist, my voice twittering with anxiety, I asked her if I could borrow it. Sure! she said. I could even photocopy it! Which I did! And now I am basically back to where I was before my bag was stolen, except I lost my address book, so I wouldn't expect any postcards from me anytime soon, my friends.

When I left the cafe, I thought I was going to meet Charlie for the taping of Yeh Hai Jalwa (actual name). I was keen to go, because I saw the celebrity I "met" the previous night on at least 50,000 billboards around the city. Pop culture is still culture, isn't it? Any of you Indians sitting around reading the Ramayana while doing yoga in intense states of transcendental meditation? Didn't think so! Alas, twas not meant to be. Charlie's cell phone couldn't get a signal inside the studio--unairconditioned that day, so just as well--and I couldn't get through to him. So no live television taping for me. And I didn't even get to be an extra in a Bollywood movie like every other whitie tourist I met here. Instead, I walked along the shore up to Chowpatty Beach, across the city to Breach Candy, past the Parsi Towers of Silence (where vultures pick at their dead), and on to Mahalaxmi Temple (where folks worship money?) and this cool mosque that's on an island way out in the water. OK, the mosque isn't so cool, but it's white and floodlit--a mesmerizing sight from the shore at night, as is the city skyline when you walk out to it and look back. I read about these places in "Midnight's Children" and possibly "The Satanic Verses"; I enjoy a good literary walk. That was that day.

This afternoon, I am taking a night train to Agra. Yes, I was originally going to visit Ellora and/or Ajanta, but after talking to people about them, seeing pictures, trying and failing to book tickets there, and assessing my own reserves of patience and wherewithal to continue sight-seeing, I decided to chuck it in and just see the damn Taj Mahal. I hope the slots are loose, because I've been overspending lately and could use a big score.

Where do I fucking begin?

2008-03-23T22:39:00.003-08:00

20 March. Hampi. Spent the day at The Mango Tree cafe filling out postcards and chatting. Afternoon. Rushed back to hotel to get backpack; rushed back across river to catch an autorickshaw to Hospet, 30 minutes away, whence my bus--expensive, secure luxury bus--to Mumbai departs. Met a Canadian and a Swede en route. Shared rickshaw with them, little time to lose. Reach Hospet barely on time--in fact, rickshaw driver has to intercept bus, which is just leaving. Relief.

20 March. Evening. Settle into seat. Chat with nice Indian man next to me. He explains what's going on in the Bollywood movie playing on the TV, "Aaja Nachle." The production values are high. In the evening we stop for dinner, where I meet one of the few other foreign passengers, Emily, also Canadian. We converse.

21 March. Very early morning hours. Bus stops for fuel. I stagger outside to take a piss. Return. Notice my water bottle in the overhead rack. Alone. My daypack, which I had uncharacteristically placed overhead with it, probably for the first time in my life, is gone. Filled with dread and wonder, I look around the overhead rack, hoping it had just slid somewhere. It is nowhere. I alert the bus attendant. He doesn't speak English. He does nothing. I sit down. I consider causing a scene or demanding the bus be stopped and searched. I don't do this. I know. It's gone. I feel sick. I sleep. Fitfully.

21 March. Morning. Mumbai. Bus stops at the company office. I inform them that my bag is stolen. They jabber and dither. For about two hours. Lady asks why I didn't insist the bus be stopped and searched. I said, I don't know. I've never been robbed. It was 2 am. I told the attendant. Why didn't he insist? Why is she suggesting it's my fault? Just making me feel even worse? She invites me to register a complaint. I write down details. Bus drivers take me aside. Beg me not to complain. Bus company president evil and corrupt. They will be held responsible. Fined. Their jobs at risk. They offer me 1000 Rs. each ($50). A bribe. I am filled with dread and wonder. Never been bribed before. I tear up the complaint. Pointless anyway. I refuse their money.

Nothing valuable to anyone except me lost. But my address book. Lost. Allergy medication. Lost. Convulsion medication. Lost. Headlamp. Lost. Sunglasses. Lost. Hemp hat. Lost. Treasured washcloth from Harrod's--the cruelest stroke of all--lost. Captain Picard figurine. Lost (the second time! fare thee well, captain).

LONELY PLANET. LOST.

21 March. Late morning. Ask Emily to save me. She does. We go to Bentley Hotel in Colaba. We go to airport to pick up another Canadian, Andrew. Mumbai International Airport is pathetic. We have to wait outside. He arrives. Joyous occasion. For them. We return to Colaba. Visit Leopold's Cafe, which is famous. Sidenote. Every traveler in India is reading "Shantaram" by David Gregory Roberts (or Gregory David Roberts or Robert David Gregories). If you aren't also reading it or haven't read it, you must, they tell you. I am getting sick of this. Leopold's features in Shantaram. Johnny Depp will feature in the movie. End sidenote. We eat. I drink. Heavily. Bliss. I buy white Muslim clothes. Return to hotel. Pass out.

22 March. Today is Holi, the Hindu festival of color, noteworthy because everyone is supposed to assault you with powdered and liquid paint of various colors. It can stain skin and hair, poison eyes. I wanted to avoid it. Emily and Andrew wanted to participate. So. Don white Muslim clothes. Lock passport in backpack. Realize I need something from backpack. Realize the key to backpack lock is now inside backpack. Realize that other key is where I usually keep it--with small daypack, now stolen. Hotel employees come and saw lock off the bag. Embarrassing. Leave hotel. Meet Raheem, another Canadian, at random on the street. Head to Colaba market. Colorful men and dirty children assault us with powdered and liquid paint of various colors. My white Muslim clothes act as a canvas. As intended. Had loads of fun. As intended. Bought my own powders of various colors. Assaulted people with them. Chased children down streets, down alleys. I was covered. No touts would approach. Taxis shied away. Clean people were afraid. Finally turned the tables on the Indians. Had loads of fun. As intended. At Gateway to India, a photographer approaches. Takes photos of us. Google "Holi" for some idea of what I looked like. Gateway to India is under restoration. Whole area torn up, dusty, dirty. Pathetic. India, you can do better than this.

22 March. Afternoon. After showering, met Charlie Narayan, a local couchsurfing host. Very talkative guy, which gives me a break. We all wander together around Colaba. Eat falafels. Visit UNESCO listed Victoria Terminal (renamed Chatraapataachchtrai Sivajajari Terminal or something). Old man approaches me. Asks to draw my picture. No. Won't go away. No. Wants money. No. Follows us. For some time. No. No. No. Charlie works in television production, so offers old man job if he can do storyboarding. We go to cafe. Old man tries to draw a scene for Charlie. Charlie asks for changes. Old man bristles, his pride wounded. Charlie gives up.

22 March. Evening. Canadians go to see four hour Bollywood epic. Charlie and I go to Taj Mahal Hotel. Bar. We drink. Charlie is lovelorn. Which is fine, since I am also lorn. We leave, go back to Leopold's. Upstairs, a bit clubby. We drink more. Canadians arrive, quickly leave again. Drunk. I dance a bit, but seems Indian girls won't dance with other people if their boyfriends are with them (or, possibly, at all). So, as my dad likes to say, fuck 'em. Nice Indian guy tries to chat me up. Wants to see me again. Probably thinks I'm gay. Indian girls make me wish I were. Charlie chats up Israeli girl. She also has a boyfriend. Poor Charlie. She offers me unsolicited advice of the usual sage-backpacker fatalism variety. Note to future twenty-somethings: I don't want your fucking advice. That night, I stay at Charlie's.

23 March. Morning. Charlie and I wake early. He's working on a new dance competition/reality TV show called "Heh dai Jalwa" or something. I want to see the shooting process. En route, I read to Charlie "A Piece of Monologue" by Samuel Beckett. I think he likes it. We arrive at his office at 7 am, as requested. Locked. Nobody there. He calls his colleagues. Everyone was told to arrive at a different time. No equipment available. No one responsible around. This is normal. I am told. We look for breakfast. Nothing open. I buy cookies. Return to office. Finally, other people arrive. Equipment arrives. We go to shoot at old woman's apartment. She is in the dance competition. Charlie interviews her and family for some time. For the "reality" segment of the show. It is very hot. I pass out on the floor. Her daughter wakes me and offers lychee juice. Delicious!

23 March. Afternoon. Lunchtime. Crew plus me visits local restaurant. I order Veg. Afghani with naan. I think it's the best thing I've ever had. I ask Charlie if he worries that, by working on a dance competition reality TV show, he's contributing to the corruption and ruination of Indian civilization. He says, overall, yes. I laugh.

23 March. Evening. We visit a few dance studios to watch dance teams rehearse. Each team has a "celebrity" leader. One is a tall Italian woman who is probably too old by now to catch the Bollywood break she desires; another is a woman my age named Rachi (sounds like "Rocky" and I say this while singing the theme song and jumping up and down Sylvestor Stallone-at-the-Philly-Museum-of-Art-style but no one gets it). She has an interesting story--from the slums, became successful, etc. Somewhat of a bitch to her colleagues but nice to me. I tell her to break a leg. I hope she understands. We watch an episode of the show. On Tuesday, I can see a taping if I want. Production values are high. I fall asleep. Charlie wakes me and we visit nearby Western shopping mall. I purchase new sunglasses and new backpack locks. Eat pizza for $2.50/slice. We go home. Watch "Michael Clayton". Sleep.

24 March. Today.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh... Hampi...

2008-03-19T03:39:00.002-08:00

If you close your eyes and try to imagine India, I think your faculties of contrivance are likely to conjure a place very like Hampi, where I landed yesterday. Keep your eyes closed. Now, ask someone to go into your pantry and open every box, unscrew every jar, expose to the air every grain, condiment, meal, and spice. Ask someone to open the refrigerator, dump all the produce onto the floor, and stomp on it. Wait a few days. Have all your friends bring over their dogs, children, and grandparents, and invite them to relieve themselves freely. Find a CD of high-pitched, whiny music, and play it at maximum volume in the cheapest available stereo (make sure you bash the speaker a bit first). Ask the dogs to bark, the children to beg, and the grandparents to chatter. Still have your eyes closed? Good--now you know what India generally smells and sounds like. But you still have that lovely image of rivers meandering under a blue sky and high, yellow sun; forests of palm trees swaying gently in the breeze, their swaying like a dance to the horizon, back and forth; rolling hills; red soil; rice fields a magical shade of green; and the landscape dotted with small, tidy villages, their colorful women, layabout men, excited children, and listless cows. And that *is* Hampi. But, keeping that image, increase the people tenfold, then tenfold again; in fact, just fill your field of vision with people. Make those cute villages endless, not-so-cute towns, filling every available low place with tin-roofed shacks, gaudy little temples, communal water basins, street food shops, and random other shops. Pour in a liberal amount of autorickshaws and giant, lumbering buses gaudier than the temples. Obscure your view with dust and smog. Scatter trash on sides of roads, centers of fields, and basically everywhere else where there isn't trash already. Had enough? You may now open your eyes and ask the dogs, etc. to leave.

That beautiful India we started with is still under there somewhere, but you have to accept the rest of India layered on top of it if you want to *see* India--arguably, the crowded feculence I so flippantly describe is also beautiful, if chaotic: a beautiful, moving expression of a dynamic humanity. But let's not be too sentimental, shall we? I've been searching for metaphors by which to describe India today, because it was very hot, and my higher brain functions took a holiday. Anyway, here's what I came up with: a golden sewer, clogged with filth. So, the heart of India is gold, but like an untended sewer, the heart's been befouled and corrupted. Clean away the grime, though, or see past it, and the gold shines as ever. Hmm, I am not entirely satisfied with this image. "Sewer" isn't a nice word, after all, and I wouldn't want to imply that, though gold, India is essentially a civilization-size waste disposal system (though it could certainly use one of those).

I left Pondicherry on the morning of St. Patrick's Day and arrived in India's IT capital, Bangalore, in the afternoon. I have never heard anything good said about Bangalore, but I have nothing bad to say against the place. I was only there for an afternoon, after all, and I spent it, I have to admit, at a movie theater watching the implausibly ahistorical "10,000 B.C." Do I need another period here? Kajori? After, I took a sleeper class train to Hampi. This was an experiment, because sleeper class is non-A/C. It was fine! And SO cheap! Yesterday and today, I've been spending half my time lazing in my hotel's I don't know what to call it, relaxation area? with fantastic view, by the way, and the first I've seen in India not bursting at the seams with people, and half my time hiking around the monuments of this ancient Hindi capital beneath a pitiless Indian sun (I even got a little burned today). Please--Google "Hampi" and check out the lovely scenery, the strange rock formations (hill upon hill of high-piled boulders), the typically romantic ruins. Etc. Experience it with me. Because, like most of India, I strain at the description. Words are inadequate. But Hampi is a wonder. Hampi is a sight! Hampi is a relief.

Aurovillains

2008-03-15T20:19:00.002-08:00

"Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity."

Thus saith the Mother, a crazy Frenchwoman who moved to India a hundred years ago, shacked up with a guru, and then decided to personally direct the future evolution of humanity (into a realm of experience she referred to as the "supramental" which sounds to me like a joke from "Catch-22") by establishing an international, non-profit city in the countryside north of Pondicherry. The original plan called for an ultimate population of 50,000 people (all further applicants would be left to remain in the mediocre-mental state?). Right now, the figure stands just shy of 2000. Given that India's population has, what, quintupled over the same period of time, I'd say that I am fully justified running my sarcasm blasters on high. Here's some more. Part of the plan called for the construction of an enormous monument at the center of the (naturally, "galaxy"-shaped) city. Called the Matrimandir, it looks like a giant, golden, slightly-squashed golf ball (Google "Auroville"), which, located as it is in the Tamil countryside of South India, can only be described as "incongruous." Do you know what's inside? Of course, non "Aurovillians" are not permitted to enter without special permission (by the way, they still haven't finished building this thing after 30 years), so I didn't see it myself, but I did see a video that shows the all-white, air-conditioned meditation chamber within where residents are invited to discover/explore their consciousness or something. The chamber is lit by a single shaft of sunlight that enters through an aperture in the ceiling and is diffused by the (world's largest?) crystal ball mounted in the center of the room. I can say, with all honesty, that I've never had so much fun since I went on a tour of the Mormon temple in New York City.

But please don't take my jibing too seriously, friends. I do find Auroville, its founder, and its inhabitants to be silly and deluded, but I also happen to believe in almost everything they are doing. Their construction practices and energy sources are ecological, they try to have sustainable lifestyles, and organic spirulina-lemon-honey shakes are widely available (oh God are they disgusting). I am not willing to "be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness" as mandated by the Auroville Charter, but I do believe the spiritual side is missing from most of our lives. I think the experience, for me, is akin to an experience in reality of something you've always dreamed about. When the dream becomes a reality, it is not exciting, but traumatizing. I am so glad someone spared me the trouble of going through this process myself, because I wanted to build my own city once, too ("Stevetown". I was 9.).

To join Auroville, you need a minumum of $35,000 in order to buy property for the city (you can't personally own it) and support yourself. Once a resident, you are not allowed to work for profit. The Mother decreed that the city would function without money, beyond the greed and striving of the capitalistic world. Nevertheless, you are expected to continue making regular financial contributions to the group cause for as long as you live there. So, to a certain extent, these people are full of s.

Tomorrow morning, I leave Sebastien and Pondy for Bangalore, whence I will take a train to the ancient ruined city of Hampi. I have found, my friends, that I don't properly belong in any visionary city of the future. Where I truly belong is in the cities of the past.

Violence in Tibet!

2008-03-15T07:39:00.001-08:00

Please inform yourselves about this.

It could become a tragedy; it could be an opportunity.

In either case, I am very upset by it.

Who wants to be my homecoming date?

2008-03-14T02:16:00.002-08:00

It keeps raining here! It's not supposed to be doing that!

So, yesterday I also did very little. Last night, I had pizza for dinner. At the restaurant, I met some nice Austrians, and I've been hanging around with them a little. Tonight, we're going to go drink beer on the beach.

Today, I did very little. I finally got around to seeing the colonial architecture of Pondicherry and realized that, while it's pretty, I don't give a f*ck about colonial architecture. Especially when most of it's being restored into boutique hotels, where rich whites can safely intoxicate themselves away from prying eyes.

Mostly, I just want to keep drinking lattes.

There are SO many French people here. I feel very unsophisticated. The way they speak, they sound so nuanced. When the American opens his mouth, only harsh tones come out.

OK, since I can't fit anymore scalps from conquered enemies into my backpack, I am planning my triumphant return home. The cheapest flights I can find depart from London and Madrid, on or around July 30th or August 6th. So I have to pick a city and a date. If any of you, dear readers, are going to be in either place around either of those dates, let me know, and I may be able to meet you. Getting up to London may be some trouble, since I should be in Spain, but if I manage to find a free place to stay for a few days, I'd be happy to visit blighty again. I never did get to see the new Tate. Contact me ASAP!

Tomorrow, Auroville for sure.

I Love Puducherry

2008-03-12T23:40:00.002-08:00

(titter)

OK, enough lame posts and off-color humor. Here's what's going on:

I arrived in Puducherry/Pondicherry two evenings ago, and met up with Sebastien, a Frenchman who works here (only a coincidence that Pondicherry used to be a French colony). He lives out near Auroville (about which more is forthcoming) and kindly indulged my request to couchsurf at his place. During my first day here, it rained! So I sat in a cafe all day drinking fancy coffees and doing my taxes. This morning, it started raining again, worrying me. You see, my friends, because I am a Master Planner, I organized my travel schedule around all the rainy seasons in the world I might happen to pass through, so that, it has only rained on my parade twice in the last seven months. But, my fears were unfounded, my ego assuaged, because the sun eventually did come out--with a vengeance. When it cools off, I guess I'll wander around Pondicherry's delightful French colonial neighborhood, trying to avoid the less delightful motorbikes and auto rickshaws swarming around the place, as everywhere else in India.

Do you see now why I resort to filler?

Love the 'stache

2008-03-12T23:39:00.002-08:00

Women of India: do you really like those thick, dust-broom mustaches half the men here sport?

Governor Says He Will Now Focus on His Family

2008-03-12T23:19:00.002-08:00

Actually, I think this is a shame. Spitzer may have been unwise fooling around with high-class hookers (that is, because he's a public figure, not because it's wrong), but I kind of liked the guy and his crusading spirit--a bright light in the dismal wastes of American democracy. It's unfortunate that, in America, this sort of behavior will not be condoned, as though private morality has some bearing on a public office, whether for a governor (of New Jersey or New York) or the President. Didn't Mandeville say that private vice is actually *good* for public virtue? I guess he didn't mean it in quite this way; then again, he *was* French.

What else in the news? In addition to Spitzer walking off the job, there is more news of walks. A group of Tibetans have recently set out from Dharamsala, India on a six month protest walk to Tibet, their arrival timed to the start of the Beijing Olympics. I am almost tempted to join them--not because I am such a Free Tibet supporter (I think it's a complicated issue), but because it's such a brilliant move. All those who were against the awarding of the games to China should be glad it's given the world, and Steven Spielberg, a chance to embarrass the hell out of the wretched Chinese government.

I read in Time magazine about a British guy who attempted to walk from Britain to India without any money, relying entirely on the kindness of strangers. He made it as far as Calais.

This brings to mind The Goliath Expedition, which I may have mentioned already: one man's attempt to walk from Patagonia to John O'Groats. I gather he's been stuck in Alaska for awhile, because the Russians won't grant him a visa (and because he can't figure out--I'm not joking--how to cross the Bering Strait on foot?). See http://goliath.mail2web.com/ for details.

Hey, wait a minute, this is a travel blog, not a news blog. Let me try again to post something travel-related...

Erect in Conscious Integrity

2008-03-11T01:13:00.007-08:00

I hadn't planned on visiting Madras at all--even Lonely Planet has negative things to say about it. But I had to pass through, so I thought I should give India's fourth-largest city (still about 6 million people) a chance. I'm glad I did, because I uncovered some gems. Overall, it's a fairly relaxed place by Indian standards, though still high octane compared to America. Allow me to proceed in reverse order, skipping unnecessary details.

Santhome Cathedral ballyhoos itself as being only one of three churches in the world built atop the tomb of an apostle of Jesus Christ (one free samosa if you can name the other two)--in this case, St. Thomas. You may know him from the cliche "doubting Thomas" (as in, don't be one). St. Thomas, after sticking his fingers into Christ's resurrected kidneys (eww), came to India to preach and whatnot. He ended up in Madras, or whatever it was called before it actually existed, and--wait for it--was martyred. Believe it? I don't! But I've already visited one other tomb-church, and I plan to visit the third this summer (oops! hint! make that half a samosa!), and soon I'll be able to say I visited the only three churches in the world built atop the tombs of apostles of Jesus Christ (applause). And I didn't even know it was here! I love it.

Just before that, I visited a colorful Dravidian-style temple, its main tower a riotous, tapered display of festive figures (in procession, like Trajan's Column, but in Technicolor 3-D). I had to take off my shoes to go inside, was overcharged for storing them, and filthified my socks before learning, I should I have known, that non-Hindus are barred from the inner sanctum. At least I dodged that woman who tried to put a garland of flowers around my head! Nice try, begum!

Near the Hindu temple was a Jain temple, my first. It was so beautiful! Ah! And all in white marble. And I was allowed inside! And I didn't have to pay to leave my shoes! Jains rule.

Finally, or firstly, I stopped at the Raj-era Fort St. George to see if there's anything interesting there. Guess what? No! But! I also stopped, within, at St. Mary's Church, which ballyhoos itself as the oldest Anglican church east of the Suez. Huzzah! Completed in 1680, the church itself is nothing spectacular, but inside I found what I intend to be the model for my own epitaph:

To the memory of JOSIAH WEBBE, Esquire.
For many years Chief Secretary to the Government of Madras
and afterwards resident at the court of Scindia, where he died
the 9th of November 1804, aged 37 years.
His mind, by nature firm, lofty, energetic, was formed by classic study
to a tone of independence and patriotism not unworthy
the best days of Greece and Rome.
Disdaining the little arts of private influence or vulgar popularity
and erect in conscious integrity, he rested his claims to
public honours on public merit.
An extensive knowledge of the Eastern languages forwarded his
rise to stations of high trust, where his ambition was fired to
exalt the honour and interests of his country.
But in the midst of a career thus useful and distinguished
preferring the public weal to personal safety,
he fell a martyr to an ungenial climate in the prime of life
beloved with fervour by his friends
particularly lamented by the governors of India.
Admired and regretted by all.

To his public and private virtues this monument is
dedicated by his friends.

I, too, aspire to rise to stations of high trust, erect in conscious integrity. Executors, please maintain the British 'u' spellings in my version. Also, replace "Madras" with "the Celestial Spheres", "Scindia" with "Cthulhu", and "India" with "the Multiverse."

Now, as if that weren't enough, some of you privileged bastards who went to Yale may know that your university was originally named after an otherwise obscure British merchant who sent over a box of random crap to New Haven when its college's Puritan founders begged for someone to make a bequest. In a corner of St. Mary's, I discovered *this* plaque:

Commemorating the 250th anniversary of the naming of Yale College in honor of Elihu Yale, Governor of Fort St. George 1687-1692 and vestryman and treasurer of St. Mary's Church, the classmates of Chester Bowles, Yale 1924, American ambassador to India, have made donations for lasting improvements in this church.

October 6, 1968

Lux et Veritas

So there you have it. Proof that people in the US once actually had names like "Chester Bowles."

The church must be proud of this Yale connection, because next to the plaque is a glass case full of Elihu memorabilia, like the wedding register in which his name is inscribed and a photo of his tombstone in Wrexham, Wales. This poem appears on the tomb:

Born in America, in Europe bred
In Africa travell'd and in Asia wed
Where long he liv'd and thriv'd; In London dead
Much good, some ill, he did; so hope all's even
And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to Heaven
You that survive and read this tale, take care
For this most certain exit to prepare
Where blest in peace, the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in silent dust.

This is an example of the kind of epitaph I do NOT want.

I was quite surprised to learn that Mr. Yale made it all the way to India and ruled the fort at Madras. Here is a precis on his governance from Wikipedia:

"As governor of Fort St. George, Yale purchased territory for private purposes with East India Company funds, including a fort atTevnapatam (now Cuddalore ). Yale imposed high taxes for the maintenance of the colonial garrison and town, resulting in an unpopular regime and several revolts by Indians, brutally quelled by garrison soldiers. Yale was also notorious for arresting and trying Indians on his own private authority, including the hanging of a stable boy who had absconded with a Company horse."

I'm glad that Yale's contemporary graduates are maintaining the fine traditions and example set by its namesake benefactor.

Since I'm doing amusing-out-of-context quotes today, I will close with a complaint of John Adams, Founding Father of the United States and our second President, on the predominant notoriety of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, found in a book I recently finished, "The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin" by Gordon Wood:

"The history of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical Rod, smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod--and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures and War."

Zing! I'll bet even Alexander Hamilton got a chuckle out of that one.

Stupid White Women

2008-03-11T01:00:00.002-08:00

Hey Dad, when I was 15, would you have left me alone for two weeks in a third world country, in a part of that country that is especially known for the free availability of drugs and alcohol, for having lax and corrupt law enforcement, and that has a reputation for posing risks to foreigners?

A Confession

2008-03-10T07:12:00.002-08:00

Prologue

Yesterday, I was fortunate to enjoy a most excellent outing to Chilika Lake with my new friends, Takao and Tomo. We saw loads of dolphins, ate fresh tiger prawns on the beach, and practiced each others' languages--naturally, I taught them mostly profanity. The Japanese continue to seduce me, even so far away, with their generosity of heart and kindness of spirit. That same evening, I had to depart Puri. This evening, after another 20+ hour train journey on the Coromandel Express, I arrived in Madras. Actually, the city is now called Chennai, but I hate that name. It sounds like food. I feel justified in my disdain, having met a young Indian guy who himself finds most of the name changes objectionable, his particular scorn reserved for "Bengaluru", Bangalore's new name, which he considers "pathetic." I decided to treat myself to a nice hotel tonight, for just one night--it cost almost $20! To my astonishment, the room still doesn't include A/C, but it does have a TV, on which I randomly stumbled on the George C. Scott movie, "The Hospital", which I've never seen, but maybe he won an Oscar for it? I don't plan to stay here long. Tomorrow, I will finally reach Pondicherry, now called "Puducherry"--I don't even want to say what *that* sounds like.

My Confession

I hate having to go through with this, friends, but when I started this blog project lo so many moons ago, I believe I made a commitment to tell you the truth (more or less) about what I'm doing and, more importantly, what I'm thinking. And tonight, after doping myself on more allergy medications than any reasonable doctor would prescribe, I have been confronted with an infelicitous truth: I don't think I can enjoy India.

No! It cannot be!

I'm sorry, but I realized this only a moment ago--really--and I happened to be next to an Internet cafe, so you're getting breaking news straight from my heart. Earlier today, I decided that India is probably the best country in the world in which to travel independently. Here, you can find the perfect balance between what it is possible to do and what is challenging to get accomplished. Southeast Asia, by contrast, is too easy. You don't even have to think to travel there. The Middle East, on the other hand, is altogether more difficult--I had to learn Arabic, and the hassle is infinitely greater. In India, however, there is hardly the sense that tourists are being catered to. Remember, I travel outside the bounds of guided tours, five star hotel chains, and international quality service. India is built for Indians. Things usually work pretty well, too, even if they can go monstrously wrong. I don't think America, at least, does much better (witness NJ Transit and its lesser disaster, Hurricane Katrina). Anyway, you have to negotiate within the system as it exists. This is often challenging, but it's the sort of challenge most travelers enjoy. I've often said that independent travel is a form of problem solving. The more you do it, the better you get at handling all sorts of complicated situations, especially those with a high degree of miscommunication involved.

But.

I have just realized, I have just come to accept the fact that I just don't trust anybody here (except Kajori and Ananda--I miss you guys!). I've had this problem before: in Egypt, especially. But I was only in Egypt for about six weeks, and by the time my rage-o-meter went red, it was time to go home. This time, however, I'm way past the six week mark if you include the entire subcontinent, and I still have an indeterminate number of weeks to go. Now, I realize what I'm saying is heresy, because everyone loves or is supposed to love India. Secretly, I think the India-lover backpackers only love what they permit inside the highly-protected shell we all walk around with. So the India they love is a highly selective version of India. And I don't hate India by any means. But I don't think I can go on enjoying it for such a length of time if I must constantly be subjected to so many unsolicited solicitations. Every time I walk out of a train station or hotel or, really, any type of building whatsoever (and sometimes there isn't a building so basically every time I walk or even stand still), I have to deal with a whole tribe of people who want to help me. Sometimes, their offers are no doubt genuine. But in any case, they are always overbearing. They won't leave me alone; they won't stop following me, or talking to me; they don't understand English, but think they do, so they say "yes" to everything I say or talk so fast I can't get a word in. And sometimes people are rude. They talk loudly on their cell phones on a night train; they shove you out of the way on the street; they drive like total a**holes, they squeeze five more people onto a seat than can reasonably fit; they read over your shoulder or just take your book; they cut right in front of you when you're in line, even if you're at the ticket window or counter, even if you're talking to the ticket agent, EVEN IF YOU'RE IN THE PROCESS OF ACTUALLY HANDING THE TICKET AGENT MONEY--and, get this, the ticket agent will often take their money and ignore you until you start becoming as rude and pushy as everyone else! I don't want this to turn into a complaint, though. This is just to give you a flavor of my daily frustrations, compounded, I think, by the sheer number of people here (I'm still a country boy at heart) and the increasing heat. What, of these things, couldn't be said about so many other countries? I don't know. I'm just saying it now, about India, because that's where I am, man.

There are plenty of positive things I could say, too--far more than there are negative things, I reckon. But the experience in general is of an intensity that I find draining, on all fronts, and I don't know how much more I can put up with it. I'm a seasoned traveler, so I can probably suffer forever like this. But tonight is the first time I've questioned whether I really want to. I went into a bar for a glass of solace but turned away again when I saw that the entire clientele were men. I wasn't looking to score, but I find roomfuls of drinking men sort of weird. Mixed crowds at bars may not be on so much in India.

I fully intend and expect to refute everything I've said here sometime in the next few weeks. To be fair, I've only scratched the surface of this multifarious country, and tonight's confession, I think, along with my maligning of the hippies, is merely the product of stress and being in a rather pissy mood at the time of writing. I'm not in a pissy mood right now, but I am fatigued by the thought of waking up to another day in a place where everyone seems to want something from me and is desperate to get it.

Thank god for chai. It makes all the difference.

In Defense of Hippies

2008-03-08T09:06:00.002-08:00

Friends, I have to apologize for my drunken rant last night against the good folks in funny colors. I believe that the combined effects of heat, alcohol, travel-weariness, and having to listen to hippies speak for so long have partially damaged my brain. I don't know if you will accept these mitigating circumstances, especially if you are yourself a hippie, but, at least in that case, I find comfort in knowing you will soon enough forget my transgression. Peace.

Did you know that in Hell, people say, "Man, it's hot as India down here!"

Where was I? I think I said that Veer Bhadra Mishra invited me to volunteer in Varanasi, but, to be honest, as much as I might like to jump at this opportunity, Varanasi is stinky, and I don't think I want to spend a month there. I may change my mind, however, as planning a trip around India is exhausting me. I have considered a number of alternatives, but everything takes so much time. If I want to see one tenth of this country, I'll have to give up going to Yemen. And what about that yoga I planned to do in Rishikesh? Is a week even worth it? What length of time *is* worth it? I don't know! Help me, people! Maybe I'll just have to create another poll. But seriously, I am at a loss. And it is so hot. So hot. So so so hot.

After the train ride, I drank beer.. yeah I did mention that. Ok, next day (today) I went over to the Jagannath Temple, which I was not allowed to enter, being non-Hindu. In compensation, the library across the street was kind enough to extort 100 Rs. out of me for a shitty view of nothing from its roof. Why did I want to go to this temple, out of the 1.5 billion temples in India? And don't you hate rhetorical questions? Basically, Jagannath is the origin of the English word "juggernaut." That's it. I can't even convince myself there's another reason. Once a year, they do in fact wheel a juggernaut through the streets of Puri, but not any time soon. I think I read about the juggernaut in Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." If anyone can think of a better reason to visit a place, I challenge you to come up with one. Afterward, I took a bus into the countryside to visit World Heritage Konark, site of the truly impressive Sun Temple. Really, it is very impressive. The temple itself is massive and every inch is carved, mostly with erotic images, and I felt weird leering at them with all the middle-aged Indian men. More impressively, there are 24 giant stone wheels attached to the temple, because the temple is actually a chariot--the chariot of the sun god--pulled by seven stone horses. In one word: awesome.

Returning to Puri, I ran into a Japanese couple I'd met the previous night while writing my diatribe against those-who-do-not-shower in the Internet cafe. We got to chatting, and I mentioned that I was not so seriously thinking about going to a nearby lake--Chilika Lake--tomorrow. Chilika Lake is Asia's largest brackish lagoon. Want to go? The Japanese did! So I thought, WTF. It's only 110 Rs. though I expect better value than I got at the library. Tomorrow evening, I am off to Madras, another 20+ hour train journey. I reckon I'll have to modify my future plans a great deal, and I've been frantically flipping through my LP all day trying to make the tough choices. So far: impasse. Think of me, my friends, no matter how bad my attitude, how intransigent my unwillingness to accept the hippies and their message of love and drugs. Think of me, and pray for me. Pray that I survive this journey, but, most of all, pray that I survive myself.