Travel and Transformation

The Good, the Bad and the Angry

2010-11-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

The Good, the Bad and the Angry

(The Emotional Truth)

It always surprises me that one of the most common things that holds back those new to their spiritual path is the illusion that emotions are either 'Good' (such as happy and loving) or 'Bad' (such as anger or sadness).

We have emotions because we are human beings and it is a perfectly natural and wonderful thing. They are just different energetic expressions of where we are in that moment. Emotions provide us with important information because they tell us, at a deeper level than our mind, what is really going on for us in that moment. And they are more reliable than our mind which, because it carries conditioning and the pressures of others expectations, often wants to put up a mask and so is not always honest about how we really are, to our-self or others.

Society has come to attach a notional label of 'Good' or 'Bad' to emotions depending on whether they are socially acceptable, or whether they are likely to impact 'positively' or 'negatively' on our ability to function as part of a society. Society handles some emotions easily, such as laughter, happiness (so long as they are not extreme expressions like rolling around on the pavement with laughter!). But other emotions are avoided, such as tears and anger. These emotions are often seen as inconvenient and embarrassing and so, not surprisingly, we often suppress them (to 'get rid' of them) and pretend they don’t exist and maybe try to focus on a ‘good’ emotion to get us into a good space. Short term this seems like a good idea and can make us feel better, but in the longer term this gets us nowhere.

There are no good or bad emotions - all emotion is an expression of what we are feeling in that moment and is an outward flow of energy. Anger is often cited as a 'negative' emotion - it is actually a beautiful emotion that is extremely powerful and flows like a torrent! Many people will perceive it as a 'bad' emotion because in their experience it is often aimed at them, or aimed randomly, and accompanied by physical and/or emotional harm. So fear arises as soon as anger is encountered and it is tempting to avoid it at every opportunity. Hence we never get to experience the power and beauty of pure anger without that fear of harm.

These emotions are a valuable doorway to our deeper self and there are ways in which we can use them to go deeper. We can notice them and allow them to be there totally, and really feel the emotion. We can remain present to it, accepting that in this moment we have this emotion and feel it totally, so allowing it to pass. Sometimes we may need to express it, although for some emotions a safe space to express them in is not always available.

This may seem similar to suppressing it but it is in fact the opposite. When we suppress it we resist it and move away from it or find something else to do to ’take our mind off it’. When we allow it to be there we move closer to it, welcome it and immerse ourselves totally in the emotion (which may then become more intense), welcoming all of it to stay with us in that moment and for as long as it needs to. Then after a short time we will find that it dies by itself allowing us to move on in a more peaceful and clear space.

Whether you express them or just feel them, do it totally, else you will suppress the rest of it. By repeating this process we find that, in the longer term, we feel the benefits of allowing all emotions and we become more real and have more clarity.

Allowing emotions to be there takes courage as it is something we don’t normally do, and welcoming them in may seem counter-intuitive, but the benefits are there waiting for us. However, first we do need to let go of the idea that there are ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ emotions, and realise they are all OK. They are not you at your deepest level, but they are the closest you will get to 'you' in that moment, so accept and cherish them in that moment, be real and allow them to be there.

And the point of all this? Because if you want to know who you are at your deepest level then these emotions are a doorway opening inwards - for you to go deeper and start to explore...

More to Life than Increasing its Speed

2010-10-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

'There is more to life than increasing its speed'

Mahatma Gandhi

1869 - 1948

A poster with this quote and picture of Gandhi has been prominent on the London Underground recently. Some cynics may say this is an attempt by Transport for London (who sponsor the posters) to suggest that a slower journey is a good thing, and that tube upgrades are unnecessary! However there are other interpretations...

When I read this quote for the first time I was surprised to realise that, even a century ago, Gandhi was already seeing a world where change caused him to question the real benefits of 'progress'. And the pace of change in those days was a tiny fraction of what we see today.

When I came to work in the City of London in 1990, I saw a 'mobile' phone for the first time. From memory it was bigger than the proverbial brick and came with an even larger battery which was so heavy it had to be worn on a special belt. Naturally (in those days) I was impressed. It enabled the trader wearing it to be 'in touch' with the markets whilst also being in the pub at the same time! I wondered whether I would ever be important enough to be worthy of such a status symbol! :-)

Just 20 years later, anyone without a sleek, pocket-size, multifunctional mobile phone is setting themselves up for social exclusion, and we have seamlessly integrated the idea of a 24/7 culture into our lives.

Technology helps us stay in touch with our family and friends - without having the hassle of actually meeting them! We can have new friends we have never met. We can maximise the use of our time. Do more. Have more. Go faster. Fit more stuff in. We will not have time for enough sleep. But somehow that will be OK.

Even when we aren't actually doing anything, thoughts fill our minds - there is so much to think about, so many possibilities - we simply don't allow our minds to switch off. My life must be more than it is. I must be more. This is not enough!

So why should we be concerned? This is an improvement, a step forward, an advantage. It makes our lives more efficient! We can do more in each day. Live on adrenaline. And then, one day, when finally we have achieved all we want, then finally we will find the time to be happy! (We hope.)

But STOP for a moment, if you dare, and consider the cost. Is it possible that we are simply adding more to our lives, somehow cramming more in, without any leakage or loss?

You may find we are not adding to our lives, we are simply exchanging one thing for another. Yes, we can have more and do more but at the same time as we are getting our hands on a sleek new exciting piece of hardware or software, without noticing we are allowing something else to silently slip away.

Bit by bit we are letting go of those moments when we could stop and not have to do anything, not have to think anything. Those moments when life is OK, just as it is without us having to try and fix it! Those times where we can just appreciate the world as it is and feel the deeper quality of each moment. They are becoming fewer. We are neglecting our deeper self, our deeper needs.

We have no time for this moment! We are too busy thinking about how to manage the next moment, rushing on to the next meeting, the next workout, the next social... we have the speed, we have got QUANTITY sorted... but the inner QUALITY of the present moment is lost.

To feel the present moment is to risk feeling your truth.

To the proverbial alien visitor, it would probably appear that most of us want to do more, to be in touch with others and the outside world at all times and extract the maximum QUANTITY from our lives.

Yet when I ask people for what purpose they are doing and having these things, I get the answer that what they really want is to feel inner QUALITIES like, love, peace, acceptance and happiness.

We continue to look outside for these qualities because it is a lot easier to look outwards and measure our lives externally (using judgment and comparison with others), than it is to be honest and look inwards and feel our own truth. And in the short term the satisfaction gained from looking outside can seem like a good substitute for what we really want.

But the real qualities we seek are not on the outside, they are only found by looking inwards and that is what we are ignoring as we are lost in the fog of the race for more speed.

That is what Gandhi's quote means to me. Speed is one of life's variables, and it can be exciting but it is not worth chasing at the expense of the qualities we are truly seeking.

Do you have All Your Adult Teeth or were you Chased by a Hippo?

2010-05-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

Have you All Your Adult Teeth or were you Chased by a Hippo?

Not the obvious chat up line but it would have been perfectly acceptable at the School of Awareness (SofA) Launch Party which was held in central London on 20 April 2010. It attracted a good crowd, some new, some familiar faces and everyone was soon mixing enthusiastically partly in thanks to the icebreaker which challenged you to identify people in the room who had 'achieved' one of 15 unusual things. Could you honestly sign for 'juggling 3 balls for 10 seconds'?

SofA has been founded by former bank manager Ankur to support and expand individual and collective Self-Awareness, Consciousness and search for Truth by delivering high quality Empowering, Experiential and Transformational workshops, active meditations and events that are affordable and open to all.

This is badly needed at this time, especially in London where there is a tendancy to get dragged into leading a very superficial life and not making time for our deeper self.

To ensure these events are open to as many people as possible, all chargeable events are ‘Income Based’ so participants choose what they pay based on what they can afford. For example, the upcoming workshop 'Inner Personal Power' on Sunday 23 May ranges from £25 for students and those on benefits, and then in £10 increments all the way up to £95 for the highest earners. Other events are free, such as the innovative ‘Social, Picnic and Meditation in the Forest’ events held deep in London's Epping Forest during the summer months where as well as connecting with each other, we connect with the forest and so with ourselves. Most Londoners don't even know that there are over 6,000 acres of real forest on their doorstep, let alone that it is all accessible by Tube! The next event in the forest is on Sunday 13 June. See www.SchoolofAwareness.co.uk

for details of this and other events.

So just how do you spot someone who has been 'chased by a hippo' across a crowded bar? And should you check if they have all their adult teeth before you ask? As each participant could only sign for one 'achievement' and it transpired that only one person in the room had ever been chased by a hippo, but several claimed to have all their adult teeth (and keeping them in a box didn't count!), what you asked someone to sign for was important. The winning strategy required you to be more successful than the hippo and corner the lone escapee for her signature before moving on to check other people's teeth!

By the end of the evening it emerged that the quietest person in the room had jumped out of a plane, it was the Swedish girl who 'had a Snowmobile License', whilst the whitest person in the room was 'from Brazil'! Participants who had 'swum with sharks' or could 'hold a conversation in 3 languages' were also discovered. And what about the guy who said he could 'juggle 3 balls for 10 seconds'? Yes he could and he proved it.

And congratulations to the two winners Vishal and Ossie who each win a SofA workshop of their choice. All in all it was a great start to a new chapter on the SofA.

Path of Love - The Aftermath

2010-01-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

Finally made it back to the chilling reality of London a few days ago. It seems a long time since I crashed out exhausted on Day 6 of Path of Love (PoL). I spent the next 3 weeks in Pune trying to physically recover from all that had gone on, some obvious and much of it far too deep for me to be aware of yet.

Yes certainly stuff has changed and I do feel much freer - maybe some barriers have disappeared - and I dont feel right now that I HAVE to do anything I dont want to do. It is like what I had thought was possible before is now happening and to tell the truth it really isnt much effort! I have clarity and any remnants of fear that lap around me are easily ignored. I have a real choice, although the way forward is so simple and clear that it isnt much choice at all - I can onle see one path so what chance of confusion? (the project in hand is to set up a centre/school of spiritual development in London).

How much of this is because of PoL I am not sure (ironically that bit isnt clear! - but then it involves looking back to how things were before which is something I do not wish to spend time on in this moment) because I had this sense of direction before I went to Pune but now I keep asking myself where is the difficulty with this project, where is the reason I am not doing it now, and there is no reason and I am making it happen now (actually it feels like it is happening by itself and I am merely doing a bit of administration to allow it to flow).

And everything I said in PoL seems so irrellevent in a way cos it was nothing to do with what I am doing now - but I do realise of course that the sharings, the honesty and the where I am now are very closely related - all those barriers and all those fears about not being good enough in whatever way (and for me that it what they all came down to) have caused all fears about not being good enough to evaporate and all those very real barriers I saw before have melted away. What I shared was just the tip of the iceberg but it has caused the whole iceberg to melt.

And so now I am left in a strange sense of freedom. Like walking through a landscape with no features - no barriers and nothing to stop me doing whatever I want. That is strange because I am not used to it, and free because in this moment everthing is simple, and I trust and have time. Maybe I am just choosing the simple things to do and ignoring the complicated - and if I am then that seems like a pretty good idea too - why indulge my mind in the complicated when it is not necessary?

Enough of this mind stuff - back to the journey - simple, clear and free. For the moment at least.

India (again) Dec 2009 to Jan 2010

2010-01-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

I have been in Pune, India (a very rapidly growing sprawling mass of 3.5 million people) for 6 weeks now at an ashram (or more correctly the Osho International Meditation Resort) - great to get away from the cold and snow to the warm and reliable weather of India... And doing some intense inner work including assisting on an 8 day Primal course and participating in a 7 day Path of Love. After these then I was completely exhausted (physically, emotionally, in every way) - but I still managed to notice a few things about India... the good, the bad and the very ugly... not necessarily in that order.

Things that I dont connect with:

- The traffic on North Main Road - Five years a go when I first came here it, this was a poorly paved road which didnt really go anywhere and it had a few cars and bikes that bumped their way up and down the road. Cows roamed the verges in search of food, and water-buffalo were regularly herded up and down it on their way to the river, causing not much inconvenience to the trickle of traffic.
Now it is a fully paved dual-carriageway-superhighway crammed full of cars and (motor)bikes. It is not just 'busy', everyone using it is attempting suicide. And as I have to cross the road several times a day (as the ashram is on one side and I live on the other) and apart from at 5.30 in the morning when it is quiet, I always feel that I am half a step away from not making it. So then that makes me a reluctant road user, and therefore an unwilling participant in this suicide pact.
Getting halfway across is the worst as then I have to stand cms from traffic, whizzing by in both directions, who sole aim is to miss me by as little as possible. And if I should wobble, lose balance or take a tiny step forward or back I would immediately be gobbled up in a knashing of spokes and a mess of car body parts.

I occasionally sat and watched it all (whilst drinking freshly squeezed sweet lime at the roadside) and was amazed at how close everything came to hitting each other - the only word that kept coming to my mind was 'Suicide! Suicide!' How can these people put themselves through this it is madness only worse! Somehow they miss - I dont know how. But with 30,000 people killed on India's roads every year and countless more injured then I guess they dont always. But there is no road rage, no one gets angry, no-one is taking anyones elses space, because in India the rule is that 'everyone has right of way all of the time unless someone else gets there first' and everyone knows this and this allows them all to drive like maniacs without ever realising it!

There is a crossing - and I used it once - it has green and red lights to tell the traffic when to stop and the pedestrians when to cross. Unfortunately I thought it would work - that was my mistake - and so crossed when the green man appeared only to find the traffic roaring all around me as if I shouldnt have been there. Safer not to use the crossing!

And of course the road gives rise to incredible noise and pollution... but that is a whole other story.

- Pollution - this is a whole other story (told you so) - being unable to breath, being knee deep in rubbish, being awakened at all hours of the night, the stench in some places... from every imaginable source: cars, bikes, rubbish, washing powder in the rivers - in short everywhere and everything pollutes and no-one really seems to do anything about it...

- Cockroaches - I find it difficult to respect the (Hindu) sanctity of life when there are large cockroaches in my room - sod them they are gonna get trodden on!

- Words that Indians dont understand No. 8
'Quietly' - Nothing is ever done quietly - it is all an excuse to make a noise. Even in the cinema everyone loves to describe each scene to their neighbour as though they were blind; in English, Hindi or Marathi, or frequently a combination of the three.

But enough of moaning - there must be some great stuff about India:

What I was in tune with:

- Th eoccasional small herd of Water-buffalo crossing the road as if they own it (well I guess historically they do). What I love is that they just walk out into the streaming traffic without a care in the world and without any fear at all. The traffic realises this and has to slow or even stop (a rarity in India) and the buffalo just stroll around totally unhurried - I found it beautiful to watch - it makes a change, the old creating havoc in the 'advanced' world rather than the other way round - maybe the balance is being restored.

- The food - it is great, fantastic, can be very cheap, always interesting and usually waiting time is minimal. This applies to Indian food. (It does not apply to the various Indian attempts at European food which are woeful and embarressing! In England we have Indian people who cook Indian food, Chinese people who cook Chinese food, Italians to cook Italian food etc etc and that is they way it should be - this experience has shown I do not value that diversity enough!).

- The wildlife - diverse and beautiful in all its ways - the constant supply of different coloured flowers that fall around me as I walk along (less busy) roads, the herons, egrets, kingfishers, cormorant, striped squirrels, parakeets, and elegant vultures that constantly glide overhead (like birds of prey not like the scrawney ugly ones in cartoons) and small birds - they all somehow put up with the pollution to live here - how they do it I dont know but I am grateful that they do. And then there are the enormous fruit bats which come out every evening and dance around they sky.
There is an exception - the elephant that is made to walk up and down the superhighway to grab the attention of locals and foreigners alike - it is an amazing animal but it should not have to suffer this environment.

- The markets (mainly fruit and vegetable) full of vibrant colour and shapes, and with some things I had never seen before - especially the matt black stuff that looked like small bit of coal - I was told you have to peel and cook them (a bit like potato).

- The meat market - despite being mainly Hindu (who are vegetarians normally) and cows being sacred, I did manage to eventually find a thriving (Muslim) beef market. Oddly enough an awful lots of cats and a huge number of vultures seemed to have discovered it too!

- The colours - this is a colourful society beyond doubt - why do we wear desperately boring colours in England - maybe we are desperately boring?

- The dogs - There are many on every street corner almost all unowned. I am strangely attracted to them - most are in decent health - as they are playful and friendly and I love the way they just go to sleep by the roadside and expect everyone to go around them (and everyone does) and then just get up when they want and wander around, defending their territory against insurgent dogs - it is a whole culture in itself.

- The pavements - actually the pavements are useless for walking along - I have no idea what the actual purpose of a pavement is in India but where they exist they are put together with such care that they must have a purpose. What I love is that if there is an obstruction, like a tree, in the way they just incorporate it into the pavement, no cutting down of trees here. Unfortunately this often means that the pavement is completely obstructed by the tree and so everyone has to step into the road to walk around it. So most people just end up walking in the road anyway.

- The poverty and the disparity between rich and poor - I have to mention it even though the huge divide between rich and poor goes unnoticed after a while - it is just part of the fabric of life here. It is a direct result of being Hindu - if you are born desperately poor then it is your karma and so you should stay that way for this lifetime. In Pakistan, which is generally poorer, there are almost no very poor people, as one of the tenants of Islam is to give to the poor. I do have to remind myself that the whole of India's poor are not my problem although it does sometimes feel like it - especially when the beggars who target westerners are on the prowl (and that means that they aren't 'real' beggars anyway but out to con those who are a little more gullible).

When I came to the end of my stay I gathered up all my excess clothes and bits and pieces that I wasn't going to take home to give away to locals who ran basic stalls along the roadside so they could sell them. Amongst them was a plastic 'lunch' box that I had bought, used and no longer needed. I decided to fill it with nice stuff and give it to someone who I had come into contact with and who was obviously poor. This raised tonnes of issues such as:
- what do I fill it with - what does a 'poor' person in India need?
- Am I helping the right people - I mean is the family I intended to give it to really poor? - I mean there must be poorer people around.
- what does poor mean in India? How little do you have to have - do you have to be starving to be poor - and how do I know whether they are or not? They do look poor and most people who are poor try and look like they aren't (apart from professional beggars).
- If I can help one family a bit why can't I help others - 2 families, 3, 4, ...10 ...100 ... In some ways helping one family seems so pointless in amongst the millions that need it.
- And why am I doing it - is it just to feed my ego? (not that 'poor' people would care but I did feel that my motivation was important.
- And what if they didnt accept it - unlikley in India but who was I to break the Hindu concept of karma and acceptance?

In the end I decided:
- Anyone who sits by the side of the road all day trying to scrape together a very basic living is poor.
- Helping one family is better than helping no-one
- I can only do as much as I am able in this moment
- I may be feeding my ego but creating this 'opportunity' and making it happen also it felt like an important thing to do (not historically being some-one who gives anything away).

So I asked at a shop what 'poor' people might need and filled my box with what they suggested (like shampoo, toothbrushes, tothpaste etc) plus I added a few more fun things like chocolate and biscuits (well if you are going to clean your teeth you might as well make it worthwhile). And they were delighted to accept it - as delighted as I was to give it. And whether it made a difference I dont know - I would guess at 'a little'. And ego satisfied - giving is not that difficult after all.

I have concluded that India, and Pune in particular, and North Main Road Superhighway in particular particular is simply an experiment to see how much stuff you can throw at one place (and by stuff I mean people, cars, bikes, rubbish, pollution, dogs, shops, in fact life in general) and keep throwing more and more stuff at it, and without anyone controlling anything, just see what happens. This is what it feels like and so far the experiment is progressing well with huge increases in everything and life adapts and still functions - which is lucky cos the experiment has very far to go! I hate to think what it will be like in 10 or 20 years, but it will be stretched to the limit, and probably beyond. But being India, it will still some how function just because it has to cos people's lives depend on it worksing somehow (although outsiders may not use the word 'function' to describe it).

The last word must go to the Indians who put up with all the shit, accept it and get on with life, cos that is just how it is right now. I am not sure if I want to learn a lot from this or not! The acceptance of 'what is' is great, but it feels like there is also an acceptance that things will always be like this (or worse) so why bother trying to change them - and that feels like a missed opportunity. India is full of contradictions and I should expect nothing less than to be challenged by them all!

Are Your Emotions Real?

2008-12-24T05:39:00.000-08:00

One thing I notice repeatedly in workshops and meditations I facilitate is the resistance some people have to admitting to themselves (and others) that they are not a perfect bundle of love and joy all of the time. For them it is quite a shock to be told that it is OK to be Sad, Angry or to Cry as well as to be Love and Happiness. Not surprisingly, often their first instinct is to reject it and then maybe accept that it is OK for others but not OK for themselves!

Somewhere along the line they have picked up these beliefs, maybe from their parents, and maybe it has been reinforced by society in general. Of course, society doesn’t often openly say ‘Don’t be Sad’, ‘Don’t Cry’ or ‘Don’t be Angry’ but it is hidden in many messages we get ranging from Government measuring ‘Happiness’ and how it is ‘good’ to be happy, to the social embarrassment of a friend crying or being angry in the street. In fact, almost everyone reinforces that it is ‘OK to be Happy’ but not ‘OK to be Sad’ by their unconscious words and actions, such as saying ‘Don’t cry’ or ‘Cheer up and give me a smile’ when that clearly isn’t the emotion that needs to be expressed right then.

I am certainly not saying that being sad or angry is better than being happy but, as human beings, all emotions naturally arise in us from time to time, not just the ones we have chosen to label ‘good’. Expressing Joy and Love is unbelievably fantastic and an abundance of these qualities lies deep beneath our everyday emotions. But to connect with them we need to go deeper. How? By first simply connecting with yourself and notice how you actually feel deep down in that moment, and allow yourself to be exactly that. Totally accept that however you feel is real for you and just allow it to be there in that moment. Recognise that, in that moment, this is ‘you’ (or more accurately a collection of you and all the emotional baggage you have picked up throughout your life). And totally express and release the everyday emotions that are there. Really be yourself!

Unfortunately, whilst freely expressing emotions is OK in your own space, it is not generally OK in a society which has become used to people presenting a whole range of (fake) masks, one for every situation, and it is far easier to conform to what others expect! Pity, because underneath all the layers of masks and everyday emotion there lies an abundance of real Joy, Love, Happiness, Peace etc. Real because it isn’t painted on like a mask. Real because there is no need to pretend ‘I’m good right now’ when I’m not. Real because we don’t even need to think ‘happy thoughts’ to connect with it. But first we need to express whatever is there in order to go deeper and discover the wonderful stuff that lies hidden within. But most of us don’t, simply because for our whole lives we have been trained to conform to the rules of this society which just isn’t comfortable with us being real. And we take the easy option and carry on conforming rather than breaking away from those rules and living as our real selves.

So what is the point of being real? Expressing your emotions can bring great clarity and peace within and allows you to go deeper, beyond those emotions, bringing more realisations about who you truly are. This is a path towards Your True Self - but it isn’t an instant fix so don’t expect an instant ‘cure’ - this is the start of a path of self-discovery and self-realisation of who you really are at your deepest level.

So, if you choose, you can stop all the ‘trying’ to be something you aren’t (just so you can appear to be happy to others) and give this a go:

Find a physical space where you feel comfortable;
Start ‘being’ yourself by connecting deeply inside (remove distractions, close you eyes, allow your thoughts to fall away, and just notice how you really feel, deep down, right now - don’t try to be anything different);
Be totally open and honest with yourself (don’t worry if you find this challenging);
Release and express whatever you find there (but remember do not harm yourself or anyone else, and if you feel physical anger, hitting a pillow is better than smashing up the room);
Notice how you feel deep inside afterwards - you may notice peace or clarity beneath any remnants of the emotion you expressed. The more you do this the more you will notice.
Then when you have the courage to go beyond the fear of letting others see who you really are, you can start being truly be real when others are around. Just be aware that other people may be offended if, for example, you express anger at them or when you are with them (this is their issue - yours is the one you are expressing - but they probably won’t be aware of this) so take it one step at a time. Maybe start by simply being honest with them and telling them how you feel.

If it feels like some more guidance and practice on being your real self could be useful see the Awakening Your Inner Child and Discovering Your Own Meditation Workshops at www.LondonCollegeofSpirituality.co.uk and the ‘Free My Life’ Spiritual Coaching Programme at www.spiritual-coaching.co.uk

How Superficial are You? --OR-- The Easiest Mistake You can make on Your Spiritual Path

2008-09-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest barriers we face as spiritual seekers is the ease with which we can fall into the pretence of the superficial world of Love, Peace and Joy.

Don’t get me wrong; the world that our spiritual teachers almost universally ‘sell’ us does exist. And the qualities such as Love, Peace and Joy are there in abundance. There is nothing superficial about that; unfortunately nearly all of us aren’t there yet.

What is superficial is when we TRY to feel love, joy or peace because then we fall flat on our faces. Take this simple example:

I feel angry with a particular person.

I then remember what my teacher said, and think ‘I shouldn’t feel anger, I should feel love for this person’.

So I ‘go inside’ and try and find love for this person, and maybe I do, but in focussing on love, I have suppressed the anger.

It would be nice to think that in connecting with love, the anger would just float away on a cloud! It doesn’t.

In a situation where you feel an emotion, anger for example, you have three choices:

Suppress it. The unresolved anger may seem to disappear, it hasn’t it has just been pushed into your subconscious. Your subconscious will put it with all your other suppressed anger and present it for resolution at a future time when triggered by some event. With practice this can be done with a minimum of conscious effort but the emotional effort is significant, as the subconscious will repeatedly present the ‘heap’ of suppressed anger for resolution until you deal with it.

Half-heartedly suppress the anger thinking I don’t want to feel angry, and allow it to hang around for hours or days before eventually ‘forgetting’ about it (suppressing it). This is the one that most people take most of the time because it requires the least conscious effort; subconsciously it involves more emotional turmoil than the above.

Sit with it. Watch it. It’s OK to be angry. Allow it to be there. Go deeper into it. Really feel it. Experience it. Become it totally. Express it if you are in a physical space where you can; if not, just feel it totally. In short: Be Real, this is the biggest challenge.When it is ready it will go; allow that release. You may find a calmness and clarity arise to ‘replace’ it. If anger returns at any stage then it has not been fully experienced or expressed, so repeat the above.

This applies to any emotion or feeling that arises. Whatever it is, by allowing it to be there totally you can experience it and allow it to go.

Trying to feel a particular way is destructive. Holding on to the ‘good’ emotions or stopping the ‘bad’ ones is an example of you trying to be something other than you are in that moment. Instead, just allow whatever is there to be there.

If you want to ‘hurry up’ the process it is possible, though not by yearning after love, joy or peace, but by using a technique like Self Enquiry that allows you to go more deeply into whatever is there for you in that moment. Qualities such as Love, Joy and Peace will arise by themselves once enough of your lifelong suppressed emotions have been released.

Do You feel challenged by this? If so, then great! It’s OK to feel challenged. Stay with the feeling of challenge and go deeper into the feeling (don’t get lost in the mind thinking about it). Being challenged in one way of moving forward on your path.

If you don’t feel challenged then maybe you were already fully aware of this, or you have had an ‘Ah-ha’ moment, or maybe you have just thrown it away because you just aren’t ready for it yet. And if that challenges you, then allow yourself to be open and go back and read it again…

Ankur Spiritual Coaching - Guidance for You on Your path...

What is Spirituality? A simple explanation... --OR-- Your First Steps on Your Path

2008-08-01T02:27:00.000-07:00

From my work as a Spiritual Coach and teaching at the London College of Spirituality it is clear that the concept of Spirituality confuses many people even at the most fundamental level. So I have revisited my experience to find some simple words that may help define it for you and I offer some suggestions about how you can start to go deeper...

Many ‘spiritual seekers’ get so consumed by all the ‘stuff’ that surrounds spirituality, the beliefs, rituals and practices, they end up lost in a haze of thought and activity and maybe even end up on a ‘spiritual’ ego trip which appears promising but which is going nowhere. In short, they completely miss the point.

Spirituality is not about your thoughts, your actions or even your beliefs. You may have spiritual beliefs, but the essence of spirituality is beyond that.

Spirituality is simply what leads you back home to yourself. More specifically, spirituality is what leads you to the truth of who you are in any moment, the true self. And since anything that comes from outside you is not you, the focus must be inward. It’s just you becoming you. It’s that simple.

So why do so many people get so sidetracked by the stuff? Primarily because looking at stuff with our minds is far easier and less challenging than looking inside with awareness and checking out who we truly are and what is really there for us in any moment. Especially as what we find is often not attractive!

Instead, it’s easier to ignore what’s real, and dive into our mind created ego to slip on a mask from our elaborate and extensive collection, which gives the image we want to portray in any given situation. Because in our society, it is regarded as more important to portray the ‘right’ image than to reveal who we really are. Why else would we spend most of our time peeping deviously from behind an aura that we proudly show, not only to fool others but also to convince ourselves we are something better (or sometimes something worse!) than who we think we are?

The irony is that we are all a whole lot ‘better’ than we think we are, but that true part of us has been covered up by the very same mind created ego that now portrays a false image.

To go beyond this and unravel your truth you need to start looking inside and be open to whatever you find there, even if it something you do not like, such as sadness, anger or fear. Being honest with yourself is challenging, but there is no advantage in delaying starting right now.

So how do you start to connect with you at a deeper level?
Firstly you have everything you will ever need – the true You (which is always there but is under a pile of your ‘stuff’) and some Awareness (the more you can gather the better).
Secondly, connect with inside. Put all your attention on how you feel in that moment. If it is blocked by thoughts you can ‘drop’ them by simply not giving them any energy or attention and allowing them to go (don’t fight, hang on to or suppress thoughts). More thoughts may arise... keep doing the same and soon gaps will be revealed between thoughts.
Thirdly, just notice how you are feeling in that moment. Whatever is there is Real for you in that moment… it is unlikely to be the True Self just yet but at least you are looking in the right place.
Lastly, start to notice when you act differently to what is real for you in any moment, and ask yourself for what purpose you are choosing to act differently, and how ideally you would like to act. What’s really stopping you being you and having what you really want?

Being Real is not always easy in our society, but, as your awareness grows, your behaviour will change. This awareness is the driving force of your journey towards yourself. This is spirituality in action - you are treading the right path…

The Path of Transformation --OR-- A Brief Summary of the Spiritual Parts of My Journey

2008-01-21T06:57:00.000-08:00

I was a spectator, not only of the spectacular crescendo of explosions that enlightened the Thames in the first minutes of the 21st century, but I was a spectator in my life too. Just watching it bounce along in no particular direction. Of course I did have direction, but it was from work and others. My life was being directed by others; I was just fitting in, to their show. What was I getting out of my life? Where was I going?

I was a bank manager. A hard-working, focussed, stressed and thoroughly pissed-off bank manager. I had a ‘good’ job and I played hard too, but I was (very) slow in realising that I didn’t have a Life. I was merely a distant and powerless observer of my existence, as it slid aimlessly down a slippery slope. I was devoid of feeling, unknown to joy, and had never been truly ‘in love’. And I was a complete stranger to the values of peace and fulfilment. Plus I was lost in the maze that is the corporate jungle…

And then it all changed.

Within months I had a choice to make. Move to another role with the bank or take a redundancy. I thought, I analysed (‘cos that’s what I did best), I thought again, and from somewhere I found uncertain courage to take the money and run. And run I did. Well actually I stumbled a bit at first. But once in my stride I ran and ran and ran. For six years, through over 50 countries and across six continents (Antarctica still eludes me).

Along the way I ended up in India and thought that I would take in an ashram for a week just because… well, to see what it was like and to try something different (I had never meditated before). And luckily I found a fellow traveller to drag me along to one, although not without a stack of reservations on my part about... everything.

So what was it like? Like getting up at 5.30am to do a one-hour very active meditation, then a shower, then a one-hour very silent meditation, and that was all before breakfast. And then meditate some more during the morning, more in the afternoon and some more in the evening. And they were the easy bits! I struggled with the numerous petty rules – you must wear a robe, and it must be this colour during the day… and this colour in the evening (more stuff to buy)… and only this colour trunks in the swimming pool… and use this payment card in the day but only this one in the evening and… AAAAAAARGGG! Plus it was very expensive by Indian standards and I was a backpacker on a budget. Now suddenly submerged and lost in a bewildering world, rules stalked me - openly, money flowed worryingly quickly from ATM to ashram, and the only thing I was ‘Being’, was totally confused. For five long days I fought and struggled bravely with these multi-headed monsters. And then tragedy! I was shocked to learn that my mind, which I had considered to be my ultra reliable and dependable sidekick ‘til then, was actually the sworn enemy of meditation and even that it wasn’t me at all! By now my world was gyrating uncertainly.

Sure, there was value in the meditations, and some of the multitude of multi-day courses looked good if I could only understand what they were all about, but they were sooooo expensive… and anyway, I was only there a week, so no time for that. But it was playing on my mind – if indeed it was my mind? Confusion reigned.

I was just about to book my tickets for ‘elsewhere’ when my resistance suddenly ceased! It was the calm after the storm. OK so maybe the clothes weren’t totally ridiculous and everyone else wore them, and besides I had bought them now. And comparing the ashram prices to those in UK made it a little easier to swallow. In these terms, maybe it wasn’t sooo bad. But that lead to a new dis-ease around there being nothing now to stop me carrying on and ‘doing stuff’ here. The meditating felt good, and I somehow felt a desperate need to do these courses. And I realised I needed some help, so ‘I’ could look at ‘me’ - was this a ridiculous concept? Could I really broaden my vision and shed the narrow view I had held all my life? And for the first time ever, could I challenge myself, challenge what I thought, connect with my feelings, have emotions, feel true love and discover who I really was? Now I was getting scared!

And that is when my journey really began.

I stayed a month, I had to move on because my visa was running out, but the seed had been sewn and I had taken a new name, Ankur (meaning 'new growth'). I had only scratched the surface, but at least I now knew where to dig. And just 12 months later I was back, this time for four months. Many hours of meditation, numerous courses, much pain and self-discovery later I emerged a very different person: with emotion, with a heart, with an awareness of true self and a new level of self-esteem. I experienced the qualities of joy, peace and total fulfilment that are my true self and can just feel how incredible it is to be in that space. I was not complete though, these were just the first few steps, but I had found a path….

And as well as going back to that ashram, further steps on my journey have included studying NLP, Life Coaching and Enlightenment Intensive work which I now combine with my experience for my new roles in life, as a Spiritual Life Change Coach and Meditation Teacher – my path it seems, is also to help others discover themselves.

So am I still a spectator of my life? Yes, I certainly am. But I am no longer looking from afar. I am looking from the inside, at the inside, aware of who I am and how I feel in every moment (well… most of them); and I realise that I am responsible for my own feelings and behaviour and I have real choices about my future. I am finally scripting my own show.

Now with new Openness and Awareness, I constantly seek the courage to Allow and Accept whatever is there. Just trying to be connected with myself and be real in every moment is an enormous challenge, which I relish simply because I can feel the benefits in every moment. I create my own reality – and my intention is always to do that from the blissful space of my True Self.

Check out how you can discover yourself and change your life at
http://www.spiritual-coaching.co.uk/
and
http://www.lifechangecoaching.co.uk/

Where 42 Kiev, Ukraine --OR-- There is no Bad Weather, Only Bad Clothes

2008-01-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

'There is no bad weather, only bad clothes' I was told as I arrived in snowy sub-zero Kiev with what had suddenly become a backpack of substandard garments. I did find that this was offset by volume, and so wearing an unlikely high number of layers made the weather improve significantly. However it wasn't until, after some days, when there was a sudden rise in temperature (up to zero) that I started to feel 'warm'.

I asked a local girl what Ukraine was famous for. After a moments thought she replied 'Andriy Shevchenko (footballer)... and Chernobyl !' Both expensive mistakes - one seems to have faded into just a distant memory whilst the other is still red hot and can only be visted with a Geiger counter in hand.

The Grey

- The Cloud - In India 2 years ago I remember that I only saw one cloud (in a blue sky) in 2 weeks. It is the same here, one cloud in 2 weeks, except that this single cloud is the colour of an elephant and the size of Eastern Europe, plus it is stuck right here for 2 weeks!

- Whenever I have visited ex-Soviet countries (Ukraine was part of USSR 1922-1991) I have seen the Soviet style housing i.e. grey tower blocs (sic), and as usual here they are situated some distance from the centre, across the (frozen) river. However this is the first time I have 'lived' in one. There is a dense forest of concrete blocs, a whole city 'nicely' planned out around amenities and sprouting as far as I can see. The gardener has indeed been successful. The age of each can be deduced from merely counting its floors - the oldest have only 6 whilst the new ones (yes they are still building) go up to 20. Inside the common areas the decor has disintegrated not through vandalism but just because it was never really meant to last 20 years. The not so rich are crammed in with an extended family sleeping in one room (plus kitchen and bathroom). The 'richer' may have a spare room to rent out. Either way, space is jealously guarded and the number of rooms a well boasted measure of wealth.

- Away from the spectacular Soviet monstrosities of the centrally planned centre, uniform grey men have thrown up repetitive housing blocks in their own image, or maybe this modern barracks for the people is intended to be a reflection of the featureless monotony of our favorite depressing gun metal grey cloud which dominates the country and so camoflages the housing as it merges into the freezing landscape. These central planners have seared their brand deep into the psyche of the people who reluctantly but obediently buy into it.

- The sun is a stranger - she alone is able to temporarily life the gloom. Even the snow, tempoarily dazzling with its pureness, soon fades to grey as it strives towards uniformity with its resting place, soon disolving into a darker landscape devoid of life other than for grey pigeons, stark trees - a reminder of what once was and what may be again. This land, and many of the people seem in hibernation, waiting for the first signs of spring.

- Walking - Most civilisations have developed simple but effective systems to cope with the elements, but here, despite regular snowfalls, partial thaws and refreezing, not one thought seems to have been directed at reducing the paths to anything other than an ice rink. Actually there is one man that does this. One man in the whole of Ukraine (which is the largest country wholly within Europe) who has the job of clearing the paths - I know this because I saw him once near the border with Poland - but if he isnt visiting your city this year, your paths will remain icey.

- Churches - At first I thought that going into a church to get out of the cold was a good idea. But most must have ganged up against paying their electric and heating bills and surely have been cut-off as a result. Entering into most is being plunged into a dark domed freezer with a small window (with curtains) high up on a far wall. I warmed my frozen hands above the forest of candles lit by the orthodox worshippers.

- Black and brown bears still dance in the circus to a human tune. A sad throwback to me, but the locals see nothing wrong in parading these animals in chains.

- Zebra crossing marking on the road have faded to... nothing. Not that it was that important because even when the green man is displayed cars can still 'go' (legally) so long as they avoid hitting any stray pedestrains who may have decided to risk crossing the road. As a result the traffic doesnt go that fast but it randomly lurches across the crossing from gap to gap without warning. Personally I prefer to cross on the red man as at least the cars are predictable...

- The Metro - Fast, efficient, cheap and packed. The escalators are by far the longest I have ever seen. Unfortunately the blue 'm' signs on the surface are tiny so it is almost impossible to spot where the station entrances are. 'Fortunately(?)' there seems to be a Macdonald's next to each one and the large golden arches are far easier to spot...

- The tiresome ritual of dressing in multiple layers before stepping out the door, and the reverse when I came back... Inside it was warm though!

The Bright

- The Beach - amongst the tower blocks there are a scattering of lakes and sandy beaches have appeared - there is a whole beach culture, sunbeds, sun, volleyball... at least there is in summer... in winter they are not surpringly desolate.

- The Food - Traditional, tasty and healthy. Ok so there are numerous MacDonald's, but excluding them the food is good and real. No nasty cook chill preprepared meals here. And the soups are something else.

- Caviare - Cheap and after the initial shock of having fish eggs on bread for breakfast (and many other meals), it was tasty!

- The metro costs 1/50 of that in London, the bus 1/10, beer 1/5, coffee 1/2 whilst bananas are more expensive. But the average earnings are far lower than London, although there are enough rich people for a significant number of western sports cars and designer handbag shops.

- Beer is cheaper than milk! And they also make English beer - Porter to be exact (one bottle has the Houses of Parliament on it)- and they do it so well that I exported some.

- The Opera - 'slightly' more accessible/cheaper than in UK - I saw La Traviatta in Italian with Ukrainian 'sub-titles' - so I had no idea what was going on.

- Tea - A strange several hour tea ceremony (involving music and dancing) with green tea balls which incredibly grew into flowers when put in boiling water - and the tea tasted good too! Ok so tea balls come from China but I have never seen them anywhere else... nor do I know how they work.

- Eating original Chicken Kiev in Kiev. Tasty.

Oh and my trip was so well timed that I missed Xmas in UK AND Ukraine. I spent 25/12 in Kiev and returned before the Ukraine Xmas on 7/1. Though we did get a real Xmas/New Year tree and covered it with lights

So it was an eye opener - I would love to go back in a warmer time of the year when there are less grey clouds!

Love
Ankur

Where 41 - Pune, India --OR-- How to Cross the Road and Survive

2007-01-31T12:36:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone

I wake up to suddenly realise that I have been away for nearly 2 months and havent sent any communication worth the name. Some of you may think this is a good thing... others will read on...

So, in India (again) since early Dec, planned for 6 weeks but extended a couple of weeks to complete what I started - which means I will be home shortly, although home will mean London again (after over 6 years of being elsewhere) just a couple of days after I get back...

So far I have managed to :
- Completely miss Xmas (actually a few local shops did start selling xmas decorations about 2 days before xmas, and plastic pine plantations appeared outide others, so I did suddenly realise it was happening ... somewhere) and I did import an Xmas pud especially... It did slip by pretty much unnoticed though.
- Celebrated a completely alcohol free new year (in fact I have had no alcohol since leaving the UK)
- had about 100 'curries' [well, Indian food] - lunch and dinner every day and occasionally breakfast.
- nearly get run over many many times (but i have just had to accept this as part of the culture) which brings me to a favorite topic...

Crossing the road
The traffic on the road I have to walk up and down has massively worsened since even a year ago. I have worked out that the following techniques can be recommended(?):
a) wait for a decent gap in the traffic which may occur between 11pm and 8am (to 10am on a sunday).
b) close the eyes and walk slowly across ignoring all the horns blaring which they do constantly anyway (this generally works with motorbikes but not so well with cars and certainly not with lorries and tankers, so it is best to have a decent idea of what is coming before the eyes are closed)
c) wait until a cow crosses and hide behind it.

Method c) was of course the favorite method but now the traffic has increased to even more improbable proportions the cows cannot stand it any more and have left for more pleasant areas leaving the human population stuck on one side of the road or other for most of the day.

So I hired a bicycle for bout 10p a day and quickly realised that this was just a quicker way to 'nirvana' than walking. In addition to the rider, hire does include ample accommodation for at least 1 (and I have seen 2) passengers and maybe even a working brake. However, turning right is about the most dangerous thing one can do in India outside of being a politician, as 2 wheels are a bigger target than 2 legs!
In a recent survey around 20% of Indians admitted to driving on the wrong side of the road. This means that any normal 2 lane road immediately becomes a 4 lane road with contraflows either side of the two mains lanes. This unplanned but apparently unavoidable chaos is 'OK' because it is safer to do this for short distances (less than a mile) where entrance and exit are on the same side of the road because it is far too dangerous to cross the road once, let alone twice just to get on the 'correct' side! In fact I really have no idea which is the correct side anymore, suffice to say that I just ride my bike along the path of least resistence (pedestrains are softer than cars and trucks!)

Apart from instantly forgetting what side of the road they should be on, Indians have astoundingly good memories, probably cos they hardly ever write anything down (outside state run bureaucracies). I was surprised that the second time I went to a particular restaurant, the waiter reminded me exactly what I had had the first time I had been there! Then I was amazed that the first time I went to collect my laundry the guy in the shack said my name before I could say anything and instantly pulled out my washing knowing exactly what was there - this appently is normal. I was even more astounded when later I realised that when I dropped my washing off, that man wasnt actually there, someone else was...

The Inner Journey
And to the reason I came back here - to spend 7 days in a room (with windows and without padded walls - so much more civilised than some of the stuff I have done) having someone ask 'Tell me who you are?'. And now I know 'Who Am I'. Well, it is not quite as simple as that, but I do have a lot better idea and a lot has changed inside as a result of that. I could try and explain how this works in detail, but ... basically finding out what is there in that moment and expressing it frees up so much of the crap which isnt me, and underneath it all, is me - it is that simple.
And as a result of the huge impact that had on me I went on to train as a facilitator for the process and go deeper into it (intellectually and in an effort to uncover more of what I am). So I am a couple of weeks late back, but who is really counting???

Apart from that I did short courses on Living in the Moment and one on Intuition (relating to tarot reading).

So when I get back I will no doubt be looking for volunteers for Life Coaching, Tarot Reading and those who want to find out who they really are. Anyone interested?

What else to say - except almost uninterrupted sunshine, around 30C, no TVs, no meat ... and I will miss it all...

Love and Hugs

Ankur/Pete

Where 40 - Delhi, India --OR-- Mangoes and the Truth about Indian Food

2006-06-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hiya,

In May Mango Mania arrives in India - yes it is the time of the year when mangoes are ripe and the whole of India goes nuts for them (well the rich people anyway). Everything that can be made out of them is. And some are even eaten as they are - especially the Alphonso variety, the king of mangoes.

And after 4 months sitting around doing nuff... meditating and stuff ... I finally managed to remind myself that travelling is about going places (and it was getting very hot in Pune) - and so I went somewhere, some places in fact, although at first I was wondering why ...

To start with something familiar kicks in - here I am on a train or a bus... then I encouter the disgusting squat toilets which look lke they have been just used by a herd of free roaming cattle which had a particularly bad beer and curry night the night before and whose aim was worse than a Peter Crouch penalty. Then the poverty - no matter what I have seen one day there is always something worse to see the next. Everyone walks round it, ignores it and builds huge very posh hotels next to it ... thats just the obscene way it is. And if you want to see the worlds biggest toilets just look out of the train window in the early morning as it pulls into a big city - endless rows of people squating down baring all (nearly all men oddly enough - I dont know where the women go)???

First stop Udaipur, which is a pretty place (well the bit around the lake and palace is at least) and spent most of the 3 days on the open air restaurant of the place I stayed looking at the views, but hardly moving cos it was so hot (over 40C in the shade) and once the palace and the odd temple had been viewed there wasnt really that much to do. So I decided to go to Jaipur...

Big mistake! Not only was Jaipur hotter than Udaipur - about 45C - (too hot to even lie under the fan comfortably), but it has to be the most scummy city I have been to in India, and you can imagine that is up against some pretty stiff competition. And since India can pride itself at being top of the world scummy city league then you may be able to imagine what Jaipur is like. Suffice to say that the description in LP of Jaipur being 'Whacky Races on acid' is about right. Traffic is constant and choking and constantly choking and when I tried to avoid it, it came looking for me! Everything is crammed in to small spaces. There are twice as many people, cars, rickshaws, cows per sq metre than in most cities in India, and more animals per sq metre than an english farm. The piles of rubbish and muck that line the streets are competed over by cows, goats, water buffalo, dogs, pigs and rats and often people as well, (cardboard is a delicacy for the pigs, cows and goats - Ive never seen humans eat it, yet) and then once they have eaten, they wallow in it. Then they follow me! I have been closely followed by people, dogs and cows (and in the mountains by monkeys) - I dont know which is worse, but it is best not to turn your back on any of them...

However I did realise that there is some value in a society that castes everyone into a specific role in life - opportunists follow the water buffalo herds as they trundle along the street and as soon as the poo hits the floor they grab it and mould it into rounds the size of chappaitis and dry it out for cooking fuel (it is normally poo of good consistency, unlike the liquid splodge left by cows - you cant spend time in India and not be an expert in poo - its everywhere - Regular washing of footwear is advisable).

Out in the villages things are not as bad although the transport can be worse. I was in a normal size jeep heading to a local market with 5 (inc driver) in the front, 6 of us in the 2nd row and about a dozen in the back (several hanging on the rear door). Now even for India I thought this was pretty full but was astounded to find that the next time we stopped to pick up passengers there was a brief discussion and no -one got on. At last I have been on a vehicle in Inida that even the locals considered was full - a first for me! Then at the next stop 2 people got out of the 2nd row ... and 4 got in. I think that in the school syllabus here, maths has been replaced by people management!

Travelling by state owned bus on the narrow winding roads in the hills of Northern India has to be about the worse transport experience I can remember - not only was I jammed in, knees crushed against the seat in front, but after about 5 minutes I was feeling like decorating the bus a queasy shade of green. Luckily it was only a 5 hour trip and I got over it in a few days (just in time to catch the next state owned bus on the narrow winding roads in the hills of Northern India...)

After trying to see the Dalai Lama and finding that he was busy, I went to Dalhousie, a place where Indian tourists go and there are hardly any foreigners, so it was kindda weird. But I did bag myself a small cottage in the hills where I stayed and meditated, and read and found I could sit on my porch gazing out at the spectacular view with one eye whilst watching England play Sri Lanka (live) at Cricket with the other. One eye is all you need to watch cricket anyway...

__________________________________________________________________

Interlude

Its hot, hot , hotter here. At least in the hills it was a lot cooler, even cold. And it rained. And when it rains it rains.

Cool and wet? Reminds me of home.
__________________________________________________________________

Now a bit just for the travel averse, who think an Indian is a restaurant in the high street, and a taste of India means going into an 'Indian' after a large number of beers, here is some other true stuff about India:

- Onion Bhajis - forget it, India's best food is not actually available in India! Well i did find one place that did them ... and they were rubbish, the english versions far better.

- And whilst we are on the subject they dont do poppadoms and pickles like we do either ...

- And Cobra beer doesnt exist here (cos it was invented in Bradford, England) - although Kingfisher is available (and there is an airline also called Kingfisher which astoundingly uses the same logo as the beer! - what does that say about air safety in India?)

- India has (inventively) partyly solved it transport problems by declaring that on the roads, everyone has right of way over everyone else all of the time. So there is no 'waiting' for other traffic to pass, no 'holding back' to let oncoming traffic through before overtaking, no waiting at traffic lights just because they are red ... everyone just goes for any space that is available happy in the knowledge that he has right of way over everyone else. Even more odd is that there is no road rage either. Despite everyone cutting up everyone else all of the time, no-one gets the slightest bit upset or shouts or says anything at all. And everyone having right of way works - well about 98% of the time. There are clearly some teething problems to be ironed out but I don't want to dwell on the number of dents, the odd vehicle on its side or the occasional bodies strewn across the road; it is sufficient to say that I have been repeatedly reminded by repetition that the word for 'accident' in Hindi is 'accident'! Anyway only 80,000 people a year are killed on India's roads (one every 6.5 minutes) so with a population of this size and growing this quickly it's clearly not that important...

But now (save a taxi to the airport at the dead of night) all that is behind me - I have been vegetarian (the only way to be in India) and had virtually no alcohol in the past 5 months, so to be plunged into several rounds of World Cup BBQs and beer extravaganzas very shortly which will be a challenge ... cos I will be home before the big tournament kicks off (lucky coincidence that!).

And that was all the travelling I did in 5 months. For the other four 'I' was the journey.

See ya soon

Love and Hugs

Ankur / Pete

Where 39 - Pune (again), India --OR-- Where Did Being Sane Ever Get You?

2006-05-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

HI Everyone

It has been yet another month's hard labour at the ashram, breaking rocks and the like.

Someone did ask me to describe the place I am in, but since I have been here over 3 months, walking up and down the same road everyday it has ceased to have any cultural attraction. Suffice to say that:
- The ashram is like living in a pradise with loads of jungle like trees, plants and flowers interspersed by walkways, open areas, air-con buildings and a swimming pool; You can always check it out at
www.osho.com (meditation resort)

- The main roads are hotbeds of hotrods and hotheads, choked with SUVs, tuk-tuks and two-wheelers striving to make their mark on the clock, the road and (sometimes) their foreheads since crash helmets are not required in cities (!). Calling it mayhem would hardly confer the insanity which prevails in even venturing near the roadside (the pavements being virtually unusable, let alone trying to cross it. The real killer though is the (perfectly acceptable) practice of driving or riding at the side of the road in the opposite direction to the traffic in the nearest lane ... just when I thought it was safe to walk at the side of the road, some bugger is coming the opposite way and expects me (walking) to move out into the traffic so he can nip behind me staying close to the relative safety of the kerb.

I have, on a few occasions, made the dubious decision to ride pillion on two wheelers (often driven by Italians (need I say more) - the men are crazy, the women are worse - I sit there hanging on grimley to anything that feels relatively fixed, considering that maybe this is what suicide feels like, not listening as the respective Italian enthiusiastically recounts stories of this and that (actually I have been to scared to ever listen so I dont know) in broken english with one hand forsaking the handlebars in order to give the story an unnecessary flourish, the other hand merely has a passing acquaintance (two fingers are just enough to keep the twist grip on full power, any excess fingers would reduce the excitement by bringing in an element of control). I am frozen whilst in wonderment at their power of longevity as we crash through another pothole, swerve around a large water buffalo with excessively long and threatening horns, and at this point I am tempted to remind them that whilst I have changed a lot in the past few months, I am not yet immortal!

_______________________________________________________________________

Interlude

From the reports the weather in UK actually seems to be getting a little warmer ( or less cold at least), although the amount of rain doesnt sound great. Here it is 40C during the day and 20C at night, so the fans are on all 24/7. Not that the temperature is the problem, the humidity is the killer, and it is getting to be unpleasent during the middle of the day - the only respite is air-con but then the suffering is double upon exit...
Unfortunately, as I head up north the first two places I am heading for, Udaipur and Jaipur, are even hotter - forecast 45 during the day and 30 at night!!! After that I head to the hills and cooler weather ... I hope.
_______________________________________________________________________

The most fun thing in the last month was a 3-day course on tantra - more about love, energy and breath than sex - but mingling amoungst (some) hot bodies is always beneficial; and delving into my own heart emotions by projecting onto my partner or using them as a mirror is very powerful and revealing - and maybe just a bit frightening.

And the main event has been 21 days of Mystic Rose ... I can see I will have to explain ... it may sound strange ... this is a meditation that consists of 7 days of laughing (at nothing), 7 days of crying and then 7 days of silence ... actually its not a whole day just 3 hours but the mood created inside does affect the whole day (and night). Laughing for 3 hours was really hard work cos it is non stop. Crying was extremely difficult, although it is getting in the state of mind and body that is more important than the tears themselves. Silence was a breeze! And so after that my emotions are swirling round in strange directions and will take a while to settle ... so I am heading off to a quiet place by a lake for a few days before doing a bit of travelling.

Yes after all these months, I finally have a plan which actually involves going somewhere! Starting with getting on a train and heading up north via the desert to the mountains where it should be a bit cooler; and leaving this place behind ... and I feel it really is time to leave ... I have been through so much here and existence is now pushing me elsewhere, somewhere quieter, less intense and reflective ... where I can look forward to the blossoming of new emotions...

You may of course think I am insane ... but where did being sane ever get me?? Or you??

Love and Hugs

Ankur

Where 38 - Pune (still), India --OR-- How to Have Everything You Want so long as You Want Nothing at All

2006-04-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Hiya

Thanks for all the emails warning me about being brainwashed at ashrams in India. I'm sure some of them were out of genuine concern, and the others were at least amusing.

I have spent most of the past month indulging myself in massages and the like - not intentionally of course, but it just happened that way ...
- Firstly, I went to th Ayuverdic doctor to try and fix my left knee which has been getting worse since I have been here (and is my excuse for not being able to kick a football with my left foot). I ended up having my whole body smothered in oil several times and then on numerous occasions my knee was swabbed firmly with boiling oil which was excruciatingly painful. At least my knee did get a lot better (back to where it was when I got here).
- Then a couple of times I had deep massage - the guy (who has been recommended to me by loads of people) found bits of me I didnt know could hurt but I floated off somewhere afterwards so it must have been good.
- Transomatic Dialogue - next I stumbled upon this, but still dont know what it means. It isn't massage but I got to lay on a table (clothes on though) and after revealing my deepest secrets to the therapist, she proceeded to talk to my body for an hour and a half - kindda weird but it went deep.
- And now finally I have decided to try Acupuncture (Tibetan style) and have needles stuck around my knee and all over the rest of me as well. Ive just started the course but I will let you know how it goes...

Just in case it seems like I am at a health farm, there are occasional reminders that I am in India, like:

Roads - Around here they love laying new roads. Unfortunately there is no overall plan and so when a road that has never been anything other than a dirt track gets tarmac'd, someone found they needed to dig a trench the whole way across within 2 days!

Language - It constantly amazes me how the locals can change languages several times in the same conversation apparently seamlessly between Hindi, Marati and English, and then back again without anyone batting an eyelid. Whether anyone really understands what is being said does not seem too important.

Pavements - these rare stretches of paradise are built around existing trees which is very enviromentally friendly (about the only thing here that is) but often to the point where the pavement is completely blocked by said tree and everyone has to walk in the road (not recommended due to ridiculous amount of traffic and standard of driving), although often there are less potholes in the road than on the (new) pavement!

Elephants walking along the road. It happens!

The diet is of course a vegatarian one (chancing eating meat here is an unnecessary risk I dont need to take) and the veg food is very good. Add to that the variety of ripe fruit available at very cheap prices and I find I am stuffing myself at every opportunity with fruit and veg and still eating more healthily than ever before. The only problem is that I'm struggling to take in enough calories, especially with the rising heat having a negative effect on everyone's appetites. So just to increase the sugar intake a few of us have started to have a weekly pig out at an unlimited thali place with loads of sweet stuff as well ... ah, the joys of Indian food... but I have definitely lost quite a few kgs since I got here.

And talking of looks, my hair is now long enough that it needs a direction to grow in other than simply outward!

____________________________________________________________________

Interlude

It is kindda strange that London is now getting over an hour more daylight than we are here but according to the BBC the temperature is attached by an elastic band to a point near freezing. Here I am just glad that it hasn't breached the 40C mark although it has been 38 or 39 most days for some time now. At least the humidity is relatively low, although that is starting to rise unstoppably in anticipation of the monsoon in June, by which time I will hopefully be back in the UK enjoying more friendly temperatures - mid 20s would be nice.

_____________________________________________________________________

And of course there are meditations - yes I am still getting up at 5.30am to jump around the inside of a marble clad pyramid although I only managed to do 26 days in a row this time as I was getting bored and wanted a few days rest. Better meditations include poi (swinging 2 small weights on strings around the head) - these can be alight but at the moment I am settling for the ones with brightly coloured scarves attached as being safer (when it all goes wrong) and better in daylight anyway; I'm not that good but for some reason a couple of people asked me to teach them, so I now teach it as well! And yes it might sound (an awful lot) like playing but this really is meditation - one of the major points of (eastern) meditation is to get out of the mind, and it really is impossible to think about what is happening to those weights at the end of the strings as they whizz round in funny patterns - so the mind just gives up ... trust me ...

And of course, Courses.
- All these courses that I have done have (eventually) brought up their share of confusion of the mind and body (emotionally) which is a bit weird at first cos it catches me unaware; suddenly, for no reason, I feel different.
- The main one this month was called 'Who is in?' which is an intensive 3 days where the first thing they do is take your watch away and then tell you to be on time, everytime. They also made us get up at 4.45am (although we had no idea what time it was) and eat boiled veg and tofu (yuk, yuk, yuk). And we were not allowed any salt and pepper either. If ever you need a reciepe for tastelessness then try tofu and diet dal.
So having got us all under their complete control 'they' sat me down opposite a partner who asked me the koan (Zen word for a riddle with no answer), 'Tell me, who is in?'; I looked inside myself and had to talk for 5 mins on how I felt (emotionally, sort of), on what was there. Then I asked my partner the same question and then 5 mins later I was asked the question again and so it went on for 3 days - I was asked 100 times and gave 100 different answers. The whole point is to bring up all these masks, personalities, egos, conditioning which are not me and discard them. Then what I am left with eventually is 'I'. And at the end of the second day I felt a different space inside me, that had been covered up by all the other rubbish - a space of contentment, beauty, happiness and bliss, and yet all so simple. Although I didn't recognise it at first I found that this was the 'I' I had been searching for!

And then I realised that I could have absolutely everything I wanted, so long as I wanted nothing!
And realising and understanding this is very powerful indeed.

Let me know if you get it!

Love and Hugs
Ankur / Pete

Where 37 - Pune, India --OR-- How to Live in Bliss - the Intellectual Answer

2006-03-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone ...

... from the land of bombs and bird flu. Not that anyone asked, but if they had I would have been able to tell them that although I am close to the location of the confirmed cases of bird flu, I have not eaten eggs or chicken since I got here and am currently surrounding myself with cats and street dogs (easy here) to avoid any birdfowl coming close. And I have been some distance from the bombs which have killed quite a few locals (but no tourists) so far.

I have been in India 2 months now and have got used to the little intricacies of life here:
- the constant power cuts which happen several times during the day, and are of indeterminent length - the only reliable thing is that they DO happen every day.
- yesterday I ate at an italian restaurant for a change from the usual curry, and they gave me a knife and fork! I thought they only had spoons in India? I havent used a knife and fork for 2 months and could barely remember how to use them - mind you eating pizza with a spoon could also be tricky.
- Festival - today was the Hindu festival of Holi which involves half the population (i.e. half a billion) roaming the streets armed with copious amounts of coloured powder and paint to throw at the other half a Billion. As you can imagine the result is an enormous unholi(!) but xtremely colourful mess. Luckily, I have avoided being coloured to death (so far) although the road is a mosaic testimony to the heavyweight encounters that have taken place, and many of the locals shimmer like rainbows.

In the past month I have managed to find a bit of time to relax, that is when I have not been beating myself up on some course or other. Last post (a month ago) I was part way through a Fresh Beginnings for a New Life Course ... thankfully now completed. But first a few things I forgot to mention last time.

Vipassana (10 day course)
It only took 20 hours for me to learn to drive a bus to carry and look after 50 people - it took 100 hours to learn Vipassana meditation to look after just me. Efficient it is not - but effective? Well, maybe it allowed me to experience a new level of ... just living!

Fresh Beginnings for a New Life Course
I was told by the facilitator that the first thing I had to do (before the course started) was find someone to do my laundry for the first 12 days of the course when we were in isolation! I was horrified - I had just arrived, I hadn't even met anyone yet; Imagine having to go up to someone you have never met before and ask them to do your laundry for 12 days. Now that is a test (of what I don't know), but I had to do it, so I did. Hopefully never again!

As part of the course I had to carry around a large blue bunny rabbit (covered with pink hearts) for 10 days (his name was Blue Bunny and he has magic ears so he can fly!). He had to go everywhere I went: sit next to me in the meditations and at mealtimes and in bed. We must have got some funny looks wandering around like that - but we weren't allowed to make eye contact with anyone so thankfully I never saw any of it!

Part II of this course was 8 days spent examining our adolesence; Strict committment to secrecy prevents me from revealing what we did on this part of the course (and you wouldn't believe me anyway) suffice to say that it was examined in depth and at some length (but it did involve a lot of chocolate!).

And finally, Part III which was 3 days of silent meditation - and that was the end of the course, a massive 28 days after it started (inc breaks) - and it did seem like a lifetime!

And at last I get to have a lay-in - well deserved I feel after a record (for me) 42 consecutive days of getting up at 4.15am or 5.30am. And you all thought I was having an easy life ...

Before I left the UK someone said to me that if they had 28 days they wouldnt spend them doing this. Yes, it is possible to look on this as 100% of your annual holiday entitlement being spent on a course, which lets face it, is not absolutly guaranteed to change your life; but if I live for, say, another 40 years, these days amount to is only 0.19% of the rest of my life - a bargain - especially compared to the 30% that will probably be spent sleeping!

_________________

Interlude

The Weather - It has been steadily getting hotter and hotter here (up to about 35C and down to 15C at night) without a cloud anywhere to be seen - and then suddenly it rains together with a huge lightening storm. At least the few days after were a little cooler (low 30's) and it made a change from all that blue sky stuff.

__________________

Other Stuff

- Three days spent in a police station...My ipod mp3 player was stolen which I had only bought 2 months before so I was really annoyed; then I spent most of the next 3 days in a police station trying and eventually suceeding to get a police report for the insurance. To say that it was bureaucratic is a slight understatement, and in the end I only got what I wanted because during one of my long vigils (meditations!?!) in the police station, the elder brother of one of the officers came in and I got talking to him - then he had a brief work with his younger brother and suddenly the police report (which I had to write myself anyway) became a slight priority and they stamped and signed it which took them all of about 10 seconds - after 3 days of waiting! Bloody Hell! People have committed murder, been arrested, tried, found guilty, executed and reincarnated in less time that it took me to get a signature on a piece of paper!!!

I have now come to terms with the loss seeing this theft as a gift of a beautiful opportunity to indulge in reading books and talking to people rather than encasing myself in artificial world of sound (I bet the person who stole it wasn't thinking that though).

- Escape!
After getting that bit of paper from the police, I was finally able to escape the intensity of the ashram and leave the energy of the course behind - and go to another ashram(!), but this one was on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake with unbelieveable sunsets ... and I was virtually the only person there - now that is bliss. And I needed it more than I could have imagined, I went for 3 days and stayed 9 before I felt I was ready to come back and face the intensity of the ashram again. And all the stuff that came up in the course is still swirling round my body, mainly subconciously until it wants to escape and drain me of my energy.

- Who Am I?
Since glibbly asking this 2 months ago I have come to realise (OK so someone told me) that this is the only question worth asking. So (unintentionally) I started off on the right lines. Unfortunately this does not make answering the question any more easy. But at an intellectual level the answer is something like this:
- You are not the body, you are not the mind (or the ego). What you really are cannot be defined in words.
- The past is just a record of events, do not indulge in your sad life-story (just thinking about it leads to more sadness).
- The future is your vision but must be without craving or aversion or ego. - Be totally in the moment, with no thoughts.
- Totally accept what is happening in that moment (it is happening anyway - it already 'is'). And there you will find who you are!

Unfortunately, these words are not the answer, words are only signposts. So intellectual understanding is only a small step - the answer must be experienced. To get a start on that just sit there without any thoughts entering your head for a few minutes - not as easy as it sounds.

When I came to write this post I was convinced I had nothing of interest to write, and now you have experinced that too! But if you have made it this far ... you probably skipped the middle bit!

Love and Hugs
Ankur / Pete

Where 36 - Pune, India --OR-- The Path to Bliss and Emptiness via Meditation and Pain

2006-02-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

HI

I have been in India for a month now and what a time it has been. I have spent most of it in isolation, not allowed to talk to anyone in 2 stretches of 10 days and 12 days each. It has been a journey, nay, an adventure, albeit of a different sort to the type I usually end up having, but I am all the better for it. The bad news is that I have spent a tonne of money and tomorrow start another 8 days of intensive course, a break of 2 days then a final 3 days. Then I really will need a holiday!!

So back to the beginning:

Arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) with the aim this trip of gaining some inner peace and happiness - simple enough goals, perhaps?

Firstly, I went to Pune Riverside Vipassana Centre for a 10 day course. Vipassana is an ancient form of meditation as used by the Buddha to gain enlightenment 2,500 years ago (from where Buddhism comes). This pure form was preserved only in Burma and in the past 40 years has spread around the world. Meditation in the west is often seen as a means of relaxation and concentration, giving the mind 'space', but its real purpose is change and there is no change as great in a person as the path to enlightenment - not that I even want to try and follow it too closely, at least not now, but there are many benefits to be gained along that path such as knowing who I really am, or having a better idea at least.

So I end up with 30 guys and 20 women (nearly all local Indians) and in strict segregation, silence etc for 10 days. The timetable was:
4am Get up
4.30 2 hours meditation
6.30 Breakfast
8 Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
9 2 hour meditation
11 lunch
1pm 1.5 hour meditation
2.30 Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
3.30 1.5 hour meditation
5pm Snack (cross between large rice krispies and Bombay mix, a banana and milk)
6pm Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
7pm Video discourse
8.30 Half hour meditation
9pm Finish
9.30 lights out

So about 10 hours of meditation plus 1.5 hour video. And this was Hardcore! Not the silence cos everyone around was in silence as well, so no problem. Not even the food regime of virtually nothing after midday, was that tough: surprisingly I could survive on just Bombay Rice Krispies, banana and milk for 19 hours. It was the sitting there for 10-hours a day, day after day, that was 'hell'. Sitting there very still conentrating on breath for first 3 days, and then on sensations all over the body. Emotionally it was nothing. Physically the first 4 days were excruiating. Mentally the process was like smashing my head against a brick wall time after time. Insanity is too small a word for it. And at the end of 10 days I was told if I did this for 2 hours a day for the rest of my life I would benefit greatly! Thanks, have you nothing that works a little faster?

On the 3rd day, when i was really struggling with it all, I did have a moment; something inside me clicked and I suddenly broke into my broadest smile ever - a piece of inner happiness had escaped from my repressed core and stirred my soul. Fantastic! But that was the only such moment.

So after 10-days we left (there was a board with the no. of the day it was, otherwise I would have had no clue at all - one day was exactly, to the detail, the same as the one before and the one after!) - and I wondered what the point was as I didnt feel any different to the day I arrived (exept for being thankful that it was over). We all crammed on a public bus which was full before we all got on - I managed to sit on my luggage in the aisle, desperately hanging on as we crashed over the bumps, dust being thrust through the floor into my face - the usual Indian hell. And then I finally got it! This wasn't torture at all it was bliss! No matter what the external factors it was what was going on inside that counted. I felt great. Alive. Happy. And no ordinary crap was gonna stop me feeling that way.

--------Interlude--------
Cos I'm English I have to mention the weather!
The mornings are bloody freezing her - well not quite but it has been down to 5 C on a couple of mornings. but by 9am it is warm, and 1pm roasting in the sun. And there is sun - one morning a few weeks ago I saw a couple of small clouds in the distance - they have been the only ones this month.
--------End of interlude-------

I didnt know then, that what I had done so far was just the easy bit! Because, before I really had time to understand the effets of the 10-day vipassana, I was in a different part of Pune at Osho meditation centre - for meditation of a much different style - active, fun and relaxing. Not that I went there for that, cos 3 days after I got there, there was a course starting: Fresh Beginnings for a New Life. So far I have just done the first 12 days, there is a 3 day break and then a further eight days, a break of two days and 3 more days to integrate all the changes. Yes this place is all about change in a big way. The 12 days i have just finished was all primal work - digging up the conditioning put on us by mum and dad in the first 7 years of our lives. And there was plenty of it. Now this really is hardcore (oh so maybe the Vipassana was easy?). The 16 of us were told what to do every minute of the 12 days. We all slept in a communal room for 6 hours a night - they kept us busy every night til 11.30pm and we had to get up at 5.30am (almost a lie in after the 4am of vipassana) for 1 hour Dynamic meditation (exhausting). Throughout the day we were in an underground room with padded walls and we all had to bear our soles like we never thought possible before. Suffice to say that those 15 people and 9 helpers/teachers in the room know more about me now then anyone else on the planet - holding back was not an option - it was blood (not much), sweat (loads) and tears (plenty) all the way. This was mainly emotional pain, but often a lot of physical pain had to be gone through to release it. Silence was more difficult because there was a massive energy within the group and at meal times people around us (not on the course) were talking. We were on a speial diet of no sugar/honey (or anything with sugar in), no tea, no coffee, no alcohol, no drugs, very limited dairy and loads of other rules. F***! It was hard.

My summary:
Primal work is like committing open heart sugery on yourself (without an anesthetic) - it is more painful than you could imagine, but gives you the chance of freedom in a new life.

And that is where I am now. Empty. Simply Empty.

All that supression and supressed emotion of my whole life has been forced out. All my emotional defences went with them. I am vulnerable. A bit scared. Cautious, because any emotional event, however small can fill me with anger, sadness, joy or love - and life in india is full of all of these all of the time. Luckily the support is there, there are people around me who are wonderful, there are a few who spread a different energy - this is a time to choose who I spend my time with very carefully. And I am no longer controlled by all the parental rules which I had stored in my head for all these years and truly thought were my own values. This really is a fresh beginning. Now I am me, I have so many choices about were to go and what to do next. And this was just the first part of the course - the second part starts tomorrow...
But am I scared?

Yep!

More soon!

Love and Hugs

Ankur/Pete

Where 35 - Prague, Czech Rep --OR-- Cheap Beer, Forests and Fairytale Castles

2005-06-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

So having reached Istanbul (which surely cannot be more than a mere stones throw away from home) I ambled in a North West direction in an effort to find my way back to London ...

First stop - Bulgaria - When I arrived in Turkey I realised for the first time in 2 months that women had bums - those in Pakistan and Iran were always well covered up with something loose - then when I arrived in Bulgaria I found out how they were meant to be wiggled : excessively, and always in tight denim!
And then there was the food... There are two types of mass Bulgarian fodder - Pizza and kebab! There was other decent fare though, not all western stuff but delicious and very cheap (and it is great to have chips once in a while); and mounds of delicious ice cream; and very cheap beer which for the first in time this year wasnt just wishy washy lager, no, they were good dark beers just a little like english beer. It was almost like coming home - if I wasnt so tired I might have stayed longer and enjoyed more of the other attractions like majestic castles, everlasting evergreen forests and loads of Roman ruins ...
According to the locals, Soviet Communism was accepted without a whimper, many people were sad to see it start to collapse in 1989, and many now mourn its passing. Unemployment rules, and the evidence in the form of discarded factories, is scattered everywhere. The Soviet era huge 'motivational' statues still govern the country(side) - the people here didnt rush to pull them down; there must a reason for that - reminders of better times perhaps?

Romania - was a bit similar to Bulgaria except that here just about everyone seemed obsessed with making money - ok so they dont have much but the attitude seems so 'desperate' and the people have a sense of sadness about them.
Fashion - In both these countries the peasant look is still very much 'in' as is working huge fields by hand - the occasional tractor is a real luxury in these parts.
Castles - Fairytale stuff - surrounded by a small Medieval village and a huge amount of forest.
But here they also have:
Transalvania - Home of fairytale castles (yes more of them) and Vlad the Impaler who became Count Dracula (in literature at least).
Pickpockets - When I arrived in Brasov by train I was warned 3 times before I even managed to get off the station platform not to take the bus cos there were pickpockets (so of course I took the bus). It wasnt until I was on the same bus a couple of days later that anyone tried to slip his hand into my pocket. So I got up and yelled at him - unfortunately the bus was too packed for me to move but he got off a couple of stops later. Cant say I wasnt warned.
Free beer - some hostels give you free beer every night you stay there - and free laundry too (I'm not sure if these two are connected).

Hungary
A bit richer than the first two countries - I could tell that as soon as I crossed the border by the sudden and excessive increase in the size of the women - not many hungry people here.
Budapest is a great place though - spacious, full of interesting things and easy to get about. Cheap food (fatty and unhealthy though) including goulash which aint all that - and cheap beer (difficult to escape in this part of the world).

Slovakia
Mmmmm - seems like a spare bit of Europe which nobody knew what to do with - so they made it independent. Poor. Unfortunately at the weekends the pocket hankerchief size old town in Bratislava gets overrun with English stag nights - cos the beers cheap - I cant imagine the intruders know or care where they really are:
'Where are we going?'
'The continent.'
'Where abouts?'
'The beers cheap!'
'OK.'

Czech (Republic)
Endless Everlasting Evergreen forests.
Fairytale castles.
Cheap Beer.
Is it all beginning to sound a bit familiar. Surely it will get a bit tiring travelling through places where the beer is cheaper than cola and almost as cheap as water. Certainly the quality of sleep has gone down as a result.
Since Czech was relatively unravaged by war (at least physically) the ancient towns and castles are almost perfect in their prettyvalleys albeit now surrounded by Soviet era housing blocs (sic) - the associated statues have long since been tumbled. And Prague is the jewel: but it is now packed with zillions of tourists as a result - glad I am not here in high season. Time to leave I think.

As I have headed further west the prices have risen, the quality has got better (no squat toilets here) and the number of dormitories increased. And the average age of those sharing the dormitory has tumbled ... such is life in Europe.

AT the start I did mutter that I would be back by the end of May so I am heading home. Kathmandu to London overland - well to here at least. Yes, it would have been quicker and cheaper by plane but then I would have missed the chance to be bundled into a Police station, had a gun pointed at me by a terrorist demanding money, have my daysac slashed and somebody try to pick my pocket! At least I have avoided the airline food.

Every country this trip has challenged my preconceptions. It is all too easy to soak up the media image of what is just a gaudily coloured blob on a map surrounded by a thick black line. Talking to the locals reveals a different and inevitably more hospitable angle. People were friendliest where I expected them to challenge me. Each country offered up the unexpected. And dull moments? A rarity.

And just for the sake of it - some awards the those most/least deserving:

Most hospitable people - Iran and Pakistan - impossible to split them.

Worst driving - Iran (although India and Pakistan made a decent effort)

Most dangerous activity - Crossing the road in Tehran (although sleeping in bus stations in Iran wasnt far behind)

Most dangerous moment - Either
A Nepali Maoist pulling out a gun when I declined to contribute to his cause - 'I was only joking mate - here's some cash.'
Or
The remnants of the December Tsunami invading a restaurant where we were eating dinner in Goa.
Or
Every time I ventured out to cross the road in Tehran.

Luckiest location - Goa being on the West side of India rather than the east.

Most Amazing Occurance - Being given a free lift out of the desert for 4 hours - by a TAXI DRIVER.

Most stupid thought - thinking it wouldnt be cold once I left the Himalayas. Wrong it was bloody freezing in loads of places!

Best discovery - A shop selling Weetabix in Pakistan.

Best Food - India! Curry night is every night!

Worst Food - Having to survive on disgustingly sweet cream filled sandwich biscuits for 24 hours when I ran out of food on the 'should have been one day but took two' train across the desert in Pakistan (and of course nowhere to buy food).

Longest wait - The Iran visa aside - 18 hours for a train in India.

Most stupid assumption - That the train would be on time

Most photogenic people - Natives of Western Nepal.

Most Life Changing Experience - the ashram in India.

And that's about it - back home by the end of May (just) - see you soon... Anyone want any travel tips?

Love
Pete

Where 34 - Istanbul, Turkey --OR-- How to Get Dragged into a Police Station in Iran

2005-05-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

HI Everyone

So one moment I was sleeping in bus stations and the next I was being entertained in Tehran with a whole 3 bed appartment to myself - I mean 3 toilets should be enough for any self respecting traveller. This was all courtesy of an Iranian family I met in the desert and very kind of them it was as well (it is normally rented out but it was between rentals). And there was a swimming pool, saune, jacuzzi and steam room in the basement as well but no-one else used it so I had that to myself as well. So a bit of luxury living - but of course nothing is permanent and so after dodging the traffic for a few days and admiring the anti-american murals on the walls of the old US embassy (now Iranian occupied - remember those hostages) I realised that the days remaining on my Iranian visa were well into single digits and so headed NW towards Turkey.

That was not without incident - how could it be. I had just stopped in a town for a night to see what would have been the most important tomb in Iran ... except that they didnt actually entomb the guy that they were supposed to in it. Not that it was a mistake - the tomb was meant for one of the Immans (Shiite followers of Mohammad) but during construction the guy who financed it converted to Sunni Islam and so the deal was off so he was buried in it himself. It is being restored but in what is one of the largest domes in the world there is currently (probably) the largest collection of indoor scaffolding in the world - so I got to see not-a-lot. It was while I was planning my way out of this town that some guy on a motorbike comes up to me says he is a police officer (not in uniform) and asks to see my passport. I didnt believe him and my passport was held by my hotel reception in any case. So I was on the point of telling him to sod off but first I asked to see his ID - he didnt bother showing me any. Instead - and I thought rather cunningly cos this was not something that I had expected - he just whistles up a few uniformed officers who escorted me, by the arm, rather briskly in to a nearby police station reminding me that Iran is not a free country in any sense of the word. The room was packed with police; the plain clothes guy seemed to be in charge and he was intent on looking through all my stuff - although what he was lookiing for I have no idea. Fortunately the only suspicious thing I was carring was some green tea in a small plastic bag - and it did look suspicious. But clearly he wasnt looking for green tea and after a quick listen to my walkman they let me go and even gave me a tourist leaflet for the surrounding area! I left pretty soon after that.

So after a month in Iran I headed into Turkey. En route I saw Mount Arrarat where Noahs Ark was said to have come to rest yeah yeah yeah. But let me tell you that it is one impressive mountain (actually it is two volcanic peaks (the highest one at just over 5000m)) and all covered in snow. Between the peaks is a beatiful curve which is almost exactly boat shaped - Wow what an incredible coincidence that is.

Now we all know Turkey is a hot country. I wish! Eastern Turkey is not only nowhere near the Med. but it is bloody freezing as well. When the sun was out it was ok and having packed my boots at the bottom of my bag I wasnt gonna get them out again for a walk around town. So there I was in my sandals pretending that it really isnt that cold and walking up the hill to the fort in Kars when it hailed really heavily and everything turned white - including my feet which were so cold I couldnt walk down properly - and I was soaked - great fun; yeah, I love Turkey!

But at least after 2 months of being in no alcohol countries (in Iran it is illegal (though I was given alcohol a couple of times) and in Pakistan you need to get a licence to buy the stuff) they serve stuff called beer here. But it is cold and my feet are already freezing, so attractive it is not. About as attractive as most of the Eastern Bloc style blocks of flats which themselves are indistinguishable from the clouds on a very grey, damp and drab day. You get the picture - I'm not staying here long; in fact I was just about to leave when a local guy shouted through the freezing wind 'You know this is the coldest city in Turkey'. Yeah, thanks.

So after visiting the few interesting sites in Eastern Turkey which werent closed due to the weather or lack of tourists, I headed west to Cappadocia in the desert of central Turkey where the temperature swing between summer and winter in about 70 C (-30 to +40) so the people sleep in caves, fairy chimneys (cones formed by erosion of soft volcanic ash around a hard stone causing a cone with the hard stone on top protecting it) and in deep underground cities (the one I visited went down 8 floors). It was hot during the day and at night I slept in a cave where the temperature was a pretty constant 'not too cold'. From there to the even warmer places of Pamukkale (white terraces formed by hot water depositing calcium over thousands of years). The Romans built a big city at the top of the terraces and used them responsibly for thousands of years. The Turks exploited them during the 1970s and 1980s and virtually ruined them - the Turkish mentality is not quite up to that of the Romans. Then to Selchuk and Ephesus - more fantastic Roman ampitheatres, libraries etc etc. And the Temple of Artemis/Diane which was one of the 7 Wonders of the World - these days there is just one column left of this wonder and unfortunately it is made much more interesting every time the stork which nests at the top of it returns. Ancient Wonders just arent what they used to be! Maybe that is the point.

And then Istanbul. A city split into 3 parts (by water) which spreads into 2 continents and once the centre of a huge empire. It isnt as bad as I though it might be - the centre is neat clean and touristy (and most of the rest I havent seen). It has marvelous mosques, old churches which were converted into mosques until they realised that they could make more money by calling them museums and charging people to go in. Anything that is not over 500 years old is 'new'. Nothing is ordinary and the dome of Aya Sofya makes St Pauls in London look pedestrian and the work of a conservative architect, despite St Pauls being built over 1,000 years after. There is plenty of magic here - not a place to ignore. And they do do great kebabs!

Unfortunately not everything runs smoothly as it did in Roman times and more than once I have felt that the Turks really are not responsible enough to run their own country. I expect disorganisation as standard in places like India but Turkey is relatively rich with high prices and loads of infrastructure including the cleanest buses I have ever seen - but they cannot organise a queue to save their lives unless they personally are making money out of it - I am only glad I am not here in high season.

So after suffering the shock of arriving in Turkey to find prices 3 to 5 times what they have been for the first 6 months of my trip, and having now adjusted, I am heading to Eastern Europe in a bid to get back to London via Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary ... etc.

So changing the subject slightly ... long time addressees will remember travel teds Tiny Ted and Short Giraffe who have kept me company for these travels. I will leave them to explain in an excert from their own travel diary:

'On the way to Turkey we saw Nose Peaks which are two peaks shaped like ted bears' noses. A long time ago it was such a popular picnic place for teds to go that they built an ark there which was a wooden building teds could sleep in at night. Then one day it suddenly started to rain really heavily when everyone was picnicing and all the teds had to rush inside - but there was a design fault in the ark, they had made the doors too small, so they could only get in two by two and some teds got very wet. It was fixed by next morning but it became known as the rains of the Faulty Day and Faulty Night. Next day the sun came out and they celebrated with a huge picnic of biblical proportions and they dove into a small pool that had formed, swung from branches and ate olives. It was very famous and the teds wrote about it, but a sliver of marmalade got stuck to the paper and it came out as 'great flood' instead of 'great food' and many people got all confused. And that's the real story of Nose Ark.'

In fact Turkey is Tiny Teds 49th country he has been to and we are going to have a special picnic when we get to the next country cos it will be his 50th! - and he is not even 5 years old yet. We think it will be Bulgaria which is good cos we have a Great Uncle called Bulgaria (who now lives in Wimbledon).'

Me again - So I have at least made it back to Europe and might make it back to England in about a month ...

Love
Ankur/Pete

Where 33 - Tehran, Iran --OR-- Why Danger in Iran Really is Hillman Hunter Shaped

2005-04-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

HI Everyone from the Headquarters of the Axis of Evil ... where death really does lurk around every corner.

Before ... I was in Quetta, Pakistan over 600km from the Iranian border and just about to on get a train ...

The twice monthly train left at midday - except of course that it didn't. There was a 3-hour wait which ended when some important looking plain clothes policeman came on board to check my passport - apparently having it checked by ordinary policeman was insufficient. I wasn't aware that the train was waiting because of me (ıt left as soon as I had my passport checked), but no-one seemed very bothered - there were only 3 other passengers (all locals) so we all had loads of room to lay around. Disasterously they had only brought one prayer mat between them which they had to share in rotation so prayer-time 5-times a day lasted about an hour each time. They had to face mecca each time but luckily they didnt have to keep moving it cos the track was dead straight all the way! Most Pakistanis are religious, do pray and wished they lived in a 'proper' Islamic state like Iran.

We crossed flat desert and more flat desert. Surprisingly the track had been washed away by heavy rains and had only just been repaired so progress was very slow especially across the bit where one guy was ankle deep in water next to the track holding a green flag presumably ready to change it to red if the track started to slip. I didnt really expect the train to be on time. It was due to arrive at the border at about midday the next day; it didnt make it there at midday or that afternoon or that evening. I am told it got there at 5am the next morning (3rd day) but I was asleep. I could not be bothered to wait for the whole train and goods wagons to clear the border and carry on so I got off and went across on foot, into Iran...

Now we all know that Iran is a dangerous place full of hard line Islamic Iranians who will happily lynch a foreigner especially if they are from USA or UK. However,this may not be entirely true - in fact nothing could be further from the truth. However, there are a few things you should know about Iran...

The Law!
In public it is illegal for:
- men (or women) to wear shorts (unless at a segregated swimming area or involved in sport - football seems to be the only sport which anyone actually plays)
- men to wear sleeveless tops
- women to wear short sleeves
- for females over 9 years old to take off their hejab or headscarf.
- women not to have a coat covering their bums
- males and females to hold hands unless they are married - occasional touching of shoulders appears to be tolerated though (men happily hold hands with other men and women with women)
- dance with opposite sex
- sing
- play music ...

In private it is still illegal (though that doesn't mean they dont happen) to:
- Drink alcohol
- gamble
- watch films with sex in
- have satellite TV

The penalty for a foreigner having sex with an Iranian women is death!

In reality:
- Iran is very westernised.
- Most Iranians hate the rules and are not actively religious (I didnt see a single prayer mat in Iran!)
- Many Iranians think the Islamic revolution in 1979 was a mistake.
- The mullahs (religious leaders who run the country) are effectively running a military dictatorship and are very corrupt.
- Bush and Blair are often well respected and many hope Bush does invade and kick out the present regime.
- The Iran Lonely Planet guidebook entry under 'Discos and Nightclubs' is very short and simply reads 'Dream on.' - Those things that are illegal in public are pretty much stuck to as there are loads of police around to enforce them.
- Whatever you can get away with in private is OK!

- Men and women are segregated on buses and are not allowed to sit next to each other unless related - although in a shared taxi or on a train no-one seems to care about that.
- Women allways have their heads covered in public (unless in a very deserted spot), 80% of women wear all black (less in Tehran) often black capes which they have to hold closed with their hands, or if they are carrying things, with their teeth!
- Many Iranians really believe that the current dictatorship was put in place by, and is under the control of, Great Britain!

So, it is a great irony that Iran is a very strict Islamic state, cos most Iranians are not even that religious.

I should mention at this point that there are 2 types of Iranians: Those driving cars and those not driving cars.
- Iranians driving cars
These are very dangerous people who will try not to stop at any time. Unfortunately Iran, and Tehran in particular, is full of cars and hence Iran and Tehran are very dangerous places to be. Every time I crossed the street in Tehran I knew I was taking my life in my hands - basically you have to use the 'Saigon method' (dont look just walk and presume/hope/pray that everythýng will miss you). This works in Saigon (Vietnam) with motorcycles which can easily swerve around you at the last moment and almost always do. However in Tehran they have cars which are wide and do not swerve round you at any moment. So the only solution is to walk straight into the road (there is no point in stoppýng at the kerb cos there will never be a gap) and walk straight across, giving the impression that you are not going to stop for anything and havent even looked to see whats coming, whilst being confident in the knowledge that the cars heading for you MIGHT stop, and of course keeping an eye out for the car that comes hammering round the corner and is not going to stop/couldnt stop in time anyway, so you can jump out of the way at the last moment. I have seen more accidents in Iran in a month than in the rest of my life. Everyone drives like this. Iran is a dangerous place!

- Iranians not driving cars
These people are incredibly friendly and will immediately sympathise with you about how bad the driving is. Then they will ask you where you are from and wonder what the hell you want to visit Iran for. Then they will show you tremendous hospitality which would be unheard of in the west including feeding you,paying for you and even let you stay in a spare apartment (with sauna and swimming pool etc ... more later).

So, I am in Iran and haven't been lynched (it isn't anythýng like what we are lead to believe in the media). There was some stuff to see:

- Bam - the first stop in Iran. This was hope to a beautiful mud city but in December 2003 it was flattened by a huge earthquake. A huge amount of aid flowed into the town from inside and outside of Iran but most of it seems to have 'disappeared' and the sad reality is that it looks as if the earhquake happened just one month ago. Most buildings were destoyed and the remaining ones look very wobbly but they have not been pulled down yet. Only a few small houses have been rebuilt and most people are still living in Red Crescent tents. The bazaar is a line of metal heavy goods containers - the doors are opened at one end and you have a shop.

- The Desert - Nearly every day in Iran I woke up to find that I was (once again) in a desert and surrounded by mountains, very hot durýng the day and cold at night. Parts of the desert are tediously featureless but other parts are incredibly interesting with oases, sand dunes carved by the wind, colourful rocks and date palms. And, when the wind stops blowing, peace.

- Persepolis - A city built 2,500 years ago although there is not so much there now. But it has a few buildings, columns, statues, stairways with carvings etc.

- Indoor Bazaars - Everytown has one and most claim to be hundreds of years old. They are nice not because of what they contain (they are just shops really) but because they are about the only place where there are no cars! However motorbikes get ridden through the often narrow passageways at high speed instead.

- Mosques - These were not in short supply and I could go on at some length about how incredible they all are. Many are 500 years or more old and are covered in mosaics tiles of brilliant colours, as bright as they were the day they were made, the arches describing beautiful shapes and reveal crisp stalactite mouldings ... I could go on but suffice to say that if you like blue tiles then you'll love them.

- Teahouses - Nearly always full of men smoking water pipes and occasionally drinking tea. Many of them are very old in superbly atmospheric underground caverns and one was even between the piers of a bridge not much above water level; unfortunately it was windy and so we did get a bit wet from time to time from the spray.

- No Ruz (New Year) - Unfortunately I ended up in Iran at the one time in the year when everyone (the locals) travels. The Persian calander is different to ours in terms of years, months, and days, but luckily they do have 7 days in a week. New Year is on 21 March except that this year it was actually on 20 March just after 4pm in the afternoon (it depends on the position of the sun). I was staying in a tiny village in the desert at the time - we all gathered round looking at the 7 things beginning with S (in Persian) to bring good luck for the next year and then suddenly it was new year! No alcohol, no party poppers, no Big Ben, no music, dancing or celebration. It just was New Year!

So Iran is a fascinating country full of interesting things and culture and really friendly people ...
...There are some annoying things though (apart from the laws and the driving):
- About 50% of cars are Paykans - replicas of Hillman Hunters, and nearly all are white, produce incredible pollution and are very inefficient (but petrol is only about 10 US cents (5p) a litre).
- The Iranian currency in the rial, which all banknotes are denominated in. However, Iranians nearly always quote prices in tuman (a tuman in 10 rials). This get more than a bit confusing cos I had to keep losing and adding a zero every time I spent any money - and off course unless you are careful you end up being charged 10 times more than you thought.

... And I did have some bad experiences:
The Bug - On the way back from a day in the dunes in the desert I was happily sitting in the back of a 4wd when I was suddenly bitten/stung, by something unknown, on my finger. It really hurt so we stopped the car and had a look to see what it was but could find nothing. We drove for another hour and by then it was still really painful, even though my finger had gone numb and my arm wasnt feeling great either. So we stopped at a very rural hospital and, cos they couldnt decide what it was either, ended up having 2 injection in my arms. And the Iranian Health Service? Basic - but I recovered.

The Razor - One of the biggest pains when travellýng is buses that arrive very early in the morning. In this case getting to Shiraz (where the wine grape originates - but of course it is illegal to make wine out of it here) all the bus companies left at 8pm so they could all get to Shiraz at 3.30am!!! Even the locals didnt know why. So having no choice I caught the bus and once in Shiraz decided to sleep at the bus station until it was light, locking my daysac to my backpack via a cable which secured the whole lot to a bench. I woke up to find a man leaning over my bags in a suspicious way so I yelled at him and he dissapeared. It was only when it got light that I found a razor blade which had been dropped on my bag and the handle of my daysac had been sliced through leaving me very close to having lost a lot of stuff. I didnt sleep in any bus stations after that!

The Lift - On the way back from the desert to reality I got a lift to a village where I was told the bus went at 3pm. It actually went at 1.30pm so I was left to try and hitch a lift or wait for a bus passing through. Hours passed and no buses came and no one willing to give me a lift - most of the cars were packed full of families on their way home from Mashad (holiest place in Iran). After 5 hours (8pm) it was dark and I was still looking at a 7 or 8 hour journey to get to my destination, I was slumped by the side of the road and had given up trying to get a lift when a taxi stopped in front of me. He asked me where I was going, I asked how much, but he said no charge. Unfortunately the small car (a Paykan of course) was already packed with his family and all their things (returning from Mashad). Car full, boot full. No problem, they took enough stuff from the boot to fit my backpack in, crammed themselves and their stuff into the back seat and I got in the front. I couldn,t believe how lucky I was after waiting that long. Then less than 100 metres down the road, it ran out of petrol! We eventually got going and after that lift, waiting at a roundabout to catch a bus at about midnight, and a taxi ride I eventually found a bed at 3am.

Eventually I went to Tehran to some great hospıtalıty ... more about that next time ...

Love
Ankur / Pete

Where 32 - Quetta, Pakistan --OR-- India v Pakistan

2005-03-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

HI folks,

At last - and not without a good deal of hassle and money - I have a visa for Iran. For many nationalities it is not a problem, but they dont like giving them to Brits. I have only met one other Brit in Pakistan, and he gave up trying and went back to India.

There are not too many foreigners travelling in Pakistan - I have met about 25 with most of those (for some unknown reason) being S.Korean or Japanese. Most countries do not turn out to what I expect and Pakistan is no exception to that. But first there was a bit more of India ...

Amritsar - Even by Indian standards, this place is a tip. If it didnt have a very small golden temple (and wasn't next to the only land border crossing to Pakistan) then no foreigner would ever go there. But this small 2 up, 2 down house is the centre of the Sikh religion. To make it seem more important they covered it in a huge amount of gold and put it on an island in a lake (a big tank of water really) with a causeway so believers (and non-believers for that matter) dont get their feet wet. It is the opposite to the rest of India - they dont charge you to go in, it is very serene, they give you free food and accommodation, and they let anyone go into the inner sanctum. As pennance everyone has to take their shoes and socks off even it it is freezing cold, and wear a brightly covered headscarf (provided free of course). It is the smallest 'most important' place I have been to and maybe is the more impressive because of that - worth popping in if you happen to be up that way.

Nearby, the border with Pakistan consists of huge amounts of barbed wire with one single crossing point. It is pretty quiet - that is, until the closing of the border ceremony. This is an incredibly coordinated dance by soldiers from two countries who dislike each other intensely. The impressiveness of the height of the goosestep (about head height) is only challenged by the remarkable brevity of the salutes and handshakes they exchange just before the lower their respective flags and slam the gates shut. The whole affair has become a spectacle with grandstands being built on both sides which fill with supporters who come to cheer on their country.

Then into Pakistan. The border crossing is the cleanest, best cared for and (outside the closing ceremony) quietest I have seen, mainly because locals from both sides cannot cross it and there are hardly any foreigners stupid enough to want to. The no-mans land measures about 1 metre inbetween two impressive pairs of gates belonging to the respective countries.

The Difference between Pakistan and India
- I was told the two countries were very different (they parted when the old India gained independence from Britain in 1947), but I have to say that there is more the same than different - The rubbish, air-pollution, dirt, poverty, beggars... I could go on (and probably will).

The cows
- The first thing I noticed about Pakistan was that there are no cows wandering the streets - here cows get eaten before they stray very far (a lot of Muslims here). However to make up for that (and to ensure a reasonable spread of 'manure') the streets are filled with stacks of donkey and carts, horse and carts, cow and carts and even a few camels (and carts).

The Pollution
- Because Pakistan has a large number of donkey and carts, horse and carts, cow and carts and even a few camels (and carts) which do not add (much) to air pollution, the remaining motor transport is desperate to jack up the levels by chucking out clouds of choking exhaust fumes. They are so successful in this that the pollution levels exceed even India (they have to try and beat India at everything, only occasionally do they succeed).
- In the cities and towns the rubbish is everywhere and it stinks (just like India). However in the countryside there are green fields and stuff like 'nature' without any rubbish (unlike India).

The People
- The are the most hospitable imaginable. They are forever inviting you to eat with them and they wont accept any contribution. One guy sat next to me on a minbus and we talked for about 30 seconds and he insisted on paying the fare for me as I was his guest. At street stalls vendors have refused to accept payment or undercharged me! A refreshing change from the normal attitude to foreigners in other countries (India springs to mind).

The Food
- Foodwise, from India to Pakistan is like going from oasis to desert (or should that be dessert given the local sweet tooth). A diet of pure veg has turned into pure chips, naan bread, chicken kebabs and ice-cream - although most of the time it tastes OK, it is not very healthy. Trying to get veg food is a wate of time, so my body had to make the sudden adjustment to a carniverous diet.
- Once I realised that 90% of people eat from the stalls on the street and that it is almost impossible to avoid eating meat then I started to understand the food much better. However, trying to avoid all the stuff that looks dodgy means I have got pretty hungry. And breakfast - forget it. Luckily I managed to find some Weetabix and milk so for a few days I was happy.
- Amazingly, even after eating all this dodgy stuff I have still not got ill, although I do feel I am clinging onto my health by my (remaining) fingernails.

The Travelling
- The driving here is the worst - really really appalling. I have seen several road accidents in the few weeks I have been here - all because nobody has any respect for other road users. One local guy told me 10% of people drive responsibly, the other 90% are dangerous. He was one of the 10% surprisingly enough; I just want to know where the rest of the 10% are... - What is the maximum number of Pakistanis that fit into/onto/clinging to a minibus? Trick question obviously - there is no maximum.
- Why dont Pakistanis have knees? Because there is no maximum number of Pakistanis that fit into/onto/clinging to a minibus.
- Travelling by road here is a bit of a pain in the neck, bum, knees, back, feet, head, ankles, spine etc. But it is cheap!
- Perhaps that is why foreigners get 25% off train travel - but this is such a pain to actually get with a lot of forms to fill in and loads of waiting around that hardly anyone bothers - the trains are pretty cheap anyway. They are also slow and infrequent.

The Religion
- Everyone (bar a very few Christains) is Islamic (as oppose to mainly Hindu in India). If you declare that you are not then they try and convert you straightaway. They haven't had much luck with me though.
- The old guys that dye their hair and beards bright red. I thought for a moment it was Scottish/Irish ancestory but apparently it is all done with henna. Then they let it grow out and they have two tone hair and beards in red and grey - very strange. I was told it was a religious thing but then I saw water buffalo and goats who had the same thiing done to them (yes they looked very strange) and the locals were stumped for an explanation! I dont think the women do it but since I have seen only a few womens heads (most are covered) I cant really say.
- A group of us foreigners went to a 'celebration' where some of the men, in a show of their devoutness, tie small knifes to strings and whip their backs. I'm not opposed to a bit of masocism but the amount of blood on the ground, bloodstained shirts and congealed blood and scars on their backs was a bit much. The intensity near the main place where this was going on got a bit much and even after getting through 4 security checks we were refused entry at the 5th cos we were westeners - even though we were all wearing local clothes and trying deperately to look like locals!!! The atmosphere was unbelieveably charged with religious tension, and I was really afraid that if one local turned on us with an anti western diatribe then everyone else would have followed suit - and we would have been in BIG trouble - I'm not sure the large numbers of police around would have helped us a lot. I was glad to get out unscathed anyway.

The Women
- There is segregation of the sexes in some places. A man is not allowed to sit next to a women on a bus, but compartments on trains are mixed - none of the locals understand that either.
- If I am with a foreign female (and there aren't many travelling here) we have to say that we are married (even if I have only met her 2 mins before) else the locals get very confused and she could get a lot of hassle - cos women simply don't go around on their own.
- Talking to local women, even just to ask directions, is virtually taboo. Not that I have seen too many about outside the big cities. Wandering around looking like they have nothing to do is firmly the man's job!

The Mountains
- This is what people come to Pakistan for - stunning scenery, beautiful peaks etc. Unfortunately not only is this not the absolute best time of the year to go trekking in the mountains (cos it is winter and it is very cold), but this winter has seen the most snow for over a hundred years.
- Also we were told it was too dangerous to venture off the road without an armed guard. In many places the police are non-existant so these are essentially lawless areas, and in tribal areas they have no legal jurastiction anyway.
- I joined a group of locals and made it up to a town that was 3 metres deep in snow but since the road was closed by huge avalanches we had to walk up part of the way. The town had been , and still was, cut off for over a month and food was being flown in by helicopter. As there was no where to stay up there we had to get back down the same day. Unfortunately I trusted the locals to know when it would get dark - and we ended up struggling over frozen avalanches in the dark - not recommended! (but standard practice in Pakistan).
- Whilst walking a long a clear section of road (in the light) we heard a 'ssshhh' sound above us and looked up to see a huge boulder (about the size of a car) heading straight for us. Luckily we had got at least 20m away by the time it bounced on the road and carried on down the valley.

The Kyber Pass
- The traditional route between Pakistan and Afghanistan is still a pretty dangerous place so a small group of us had to have an armed guard just to go there. It is quite easy to get a visa, but when we got to a viewpoint overlooking the border into Afghanistan we could see that it was raining there, so we decided not to go!
- On the road to the border there is aplace called 'Smuggler's Bazaar' where apart from the usual electrical goods there are shops packed with guns and drugs, all seemingly legal and all very cheap - a locally produced AK47 assault rifle costs British Pounds 50. Taking either outside the immediate area however is not a good idea.

The Tombs
Pakistan is not awash with sites to see but I did manage to see some 14th Century tombs. The main one had been half washed away by a flood 200 years ago but as it was circular, from some angles it looked complete. It was covered in blue and white tiles in beatiful mosaics. If the Taj Mahal was a body building in his prime with perfect form but lacking depth, this was a gnarled old man with personality - not in the best repair but he had tons of charcter.

Quetta
The last outpost on the road to Iran - there is nowhere bigger than a village inbetween but Iran is over 600km away. Inbetween there is just desert - and a bus journey of 15 hours on a terrible road. Luckily there is also a train - this takes 24 hours if it is on time and at this time of year it could be delayed by a lot! There are not a lot of people going that way so there is only one train every two weeks; And it leaves tomorrow, so I had better be on it. This could be the journey from hell!

So, if all goes well then I should be in Iran by Wednesday 16th March. It could be an interesting month...

Love

Ankur/Pete

Where 31 - Delhi, India --OR-- How I Found Out Who I Am in an Underground Padded Room

2005-02-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone,

Seems ages since I was in Goa dodging the waves - since then I have spent a month at an ashram followed by a couple of weeks rushing around.

Firstly, the Osho Ashram in Pune (actually it is now called the Osho International Meditation Resort so they can charge loads of cash for meditating there [ashrams are normally funded by donation only]). I was only intending to go for a few days but ... ended up staying a month - you know what it's like when you find somewhere that it so not like real life (or real travelling), it is not only easy to stay, it is frightening just thinking about having to face the outside world again, let alone actually doing it. Some people I met there are still too scared to come out, and a months stay may seem like a long time, but it hardly made me a long term inmate by Osho standards.

If you think meditation is about sitting silently in a room with loads of other people also sitting silently in a room then think again. OK, so some of it did involve sitting silently in a room with loads of other people also sitting silently in a room (the quality of this silence was something else, if you made a sound or coughed you were swiftly thrown out (quietly of course) by the neo nazi guards), but most of the meditations were dynamic, meaning you have to move and make sounds and stuff like that. In the 6am Dynamic Meditation we were encouraged to make as much noise as possible for 10 mins; and immediately after was 10 mins of jumping up and down continuously - call it circuit training if you like!

What kept me there really were the courses - I did two 3-days and one 5-day course - mainly looking at how my childhood conditioning affects me now (yes it is all to do with the people called parents) and how I can change back into who I was supposed to be and not the stranger I had become. The 5-day one was a bit tough as we (30 of us) were in total silence outside the group room for thefirst 4.5 days. I had to get up at 5.30am, and didnt get back to my room until 11.30pm - and then had to do homework! So there wasn't much time for sleep ...

Sharing all those emotionally intimate experiences in an underground padded room with 30 people I didn't know, and wasn't allowed to speak to, was kind of weird but very powerful; then after 5 days when we talked I realised I had 30 intimate friends who I didn't know a thing about - and none of us could think where to start. But when we did get it together it was like having a whole new family of friends, wonderful!

So after a month of what approximates to an exorcism of my past, I turned out to be a completely new person (perhaps a slight exaggeration), although whether I changed back the moment I stepped back into the street I'm not yet sure. Anyway to celebrate being this new person (however briefly) I had my head shaved (OK so that was years ago) and have a new name, Ankur (I'm sure I have been called something similar to that before anyway). Whether this is a final step or just a first step I'm not really sure, but it is a step...

So having gritted my teeth and with one eye on my visas' expiry dates, I left for more orthodox 'adventures' - up north to Rajasthan and into the desert:

Jodhpur (which really did give its name to a pair of trousers) - A huge fort, perched on an enormous slab of rock dominates this town, nearly all of which is painted blue (they reckon it helps keep the mossies away, but what mossies would be doing in the desert I have no idea). And apart from (What have the Romans ever done for us?)the very inpressive fort, the lovely (and cheap) food, superb lassis (note for Scottish people - these are yogurt drinks, not girls), the clock tower, full on sun, views across the town from rooftop restaurants and vibrant markets (there is no aqueduct here), what has this place got that is worth coming here for? Nothing!
The fort was founded in 1459, in was gradually expanded by various rulers, and despite having faced many attacks and sieges was never taken - when I stood at the top of the 125m high rock but still at the bottom of the huge walls I understood why.

Jaisalmer - further into the desert, out of which a walled city rises in defiance of everything that surrounds it (which is nothing except rock and sand, but the thought was there). Started in 1156, inside is a beautifully quaint whole town where even quainter people still live with quaint cramped houses, temples so squashed (and quaint) that they literally merge into one another, quaint narrow winding alleys ... and of course, being India, fat cows, shit excreted by all manner of mammals, an abundance of rubbish and nutcases on motor cycles.
- So I escaped into the desert on a camel for 3 days (with 7 other travellers and 4 guides/cooks/camel herders). Unfortunately ... after being driven by jeep an hour into the desert, when I tried to get on my sitting down camel for the first time, I had half a leg across the 'saddle' and it decided to get up and I only narrowly avoided castration but did lose half a fingernail in the process (a fortunate trade off perhaps), then opening my daysac (to mend my finger), I found I had lost my waterbottle, and then once I did get on my beast, my stirrups (which were only pieces of string) broke. So I rode off into the desert without water, stirrups and with only 9.5 fingernails. I felt that at least one of these was probably not a good idea!
- I didn't like the camel too much after that (it was lazy and always at the back as well) so later I managed to change to the one that was always at the front and was by far the biggest, a magnificent beast and quite well behaved, although he did keep trying to attract the females by blowing up cabbage sized pink sacks from his mouth which drooped (unattactively, need I add) over his bottom lip. Camels mouths are incredible, looking into one is revolting - a kalidascope of geen, red, purple and blue slime resides there - with teeth as twisted and colourful as Bugs Bunny's 85-year-old grandma who had been a heavy smoker (of Camels?) all her life.
- One thing that no-one advises you to take into the desert is wet weather gear, so I didn't. And yes it did rain - luckily only briefly. I do now know the difference between rain and camel spit, and this was definitely rain.
- The desert is not empty - if you have ever wondered where peacocks live, they live (at least some of them do) in this, The Great Thar Desert (Todays useless fact : peacocks are India's national bird). Mainly they walk everywhere although a few did fly briefly, probably just for our entertainment, but we didn't stop to find out why - we got away quick in case they came and hassled us for 'rupees' or 'school pen' - it is like that in India.
- Back inside the walled city the 7 Jain temples with a total of only 3 entrances betweenn them(merged remember) contained a maze of stunning 3D carvings - I could try and describe them but would probably fail and anyway you probably would get bored or have work to do, or most likely, both (and no karma sutra ones this time) - suffice to say they are probably the best I have ever seen for detail and condition given the age (12th - 15th century) - yes even better than Bantrey Srei at Angkor in Cambodia.

Bikaner - Then onto the most shit filled streets I have ever walked (and there is some pretty stiff competition in India). And it rained really heavily during the night and flooded the streets. And I was wearing open toed sandels. Liquid cow shit - and I just had to walk through it - not just for fun, but there simply was no other way to get from room to breakfast.
- This was not the main attraction of going there however. Even worse was 'The Rat Temple!!'. This is a temple filled with rats. They are not just tolerted but actually fed, watered and worshipped, no-one knows how many there are but one guy who worked there (over)estimated 60,000 - they only count the white rats which are considered lucky if you see one - there are 11, I saw 3 (or the same one 3 times).
So just relax and imagine going into this temple barefoot.
Rats are running around everywhere.
And these are not nice, specially bred rats; these are the degenerates of the rat world: scrawny, scabby, brown rats varying from mouse size (presumably younger ones) to the size of, well..., a well-fed rat.
So you are standing there, and just watching hundreds of them crowding round the food only a metre away makes your blood curdle.
You stand close enough to have your photo taken with them, and even crouch down to make it look like you are really pally with them; you may be thinking 'JUST DON'T ... come any closer'.
Then they run really close to you and you may think 'I'm OK'; breathe deeply, 'I'm bigger than them, they're not going to attack me or anything'.
And then they come right up to you, the scabs on them screaming 'I'm a scabby rat' at you. Then they nibble your toes ... Urrrgg ... and you try not to scream.
Then they run over your foot ... and you try and remember how honoured you are to have this happen to you.
Then they run up your leg!
F**K OFF ME!

It was just like that - and yes I do have the pictues to prove it!

- Agra - Couldn't leave India without seeing the Taj Mahal (completed in 1653 so fairly old). Got up an hour before first light to see it wake up. It is spectacular as it changes its hue in the early light, a wonderful testament to a man's love for a women and what happens when the King has too much money to waste. The best views are from a distance; I immersed myself in its shape, its form, its colours and its beauty - it makes an impact. But the closer I got the less interesting it was. Then I got too close and realised that apart from a few bits of intricate inlaid stones, it is just huge slabs of marble; just a building and not an overly interesting one at that.

And nearby there is a fantastic Red Fort made out of red sandstone, and adorned with white marble palaces - all built by the same people who built the Taj Mahal.

Delhi
Onto the capital, just for a couple of days. I expected this to be a modern westernised place, and some of it is. But it also boasts roads covered in muck (those cows again) and traffic jams of cycle rickshaws (a really slow but pleasant way to travel if you can stand the pollution). It also has a red fort (made of red sandstone!) which isn't a patch on the one at Agra, and India's largest mosque (completed in 1658) which can hold 25,000 people. Surrounding this mosque are streets of butchers shops, something of a surprise in India - the muslims eat stacks of meat, and judging by the displays of the shops, goat's heads are a speciality. Strangely there were no cows wandering the streets near here - wonder what happened to them?

So after 3 months I am nearly finished in India - just up to the Golden Temple at Amritsar and then over the border to Pakistan. I feel like I am heading home - well at least I am heading NW which is pretty much the right direction - may take a few months to get back but the food might be better than if I went by 'plane.
- Incidentaly I have been travelling nearly 5 months in Nepal and India, eating fantastic food and haven't been ill once. I will regret writing that sometime soon!

- I was tying to think how to sum up India in a few words or a picture. After careful(?) thought it would have to be a picture of a man pissing up against the wall of the Taj Mahal!
India is the best and the worst of everything expertly blended together.

So what is happening with you ... ?

Home soon(?)

Love

Ankur/Pete

Where 30 - Goa, India --OR-- How to Run Away from a Tsunami --OR-- How to Start a Sex Riot on a Railway Platform

2005-01-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone,

Last time a tragic and unexpected world disaster happened I was in Oz, and although I watched it on TV, felt very remote from the collapsing twin towers. This time I literally got my feet wet.

But I am getting ahead of events. Trivial as it now seems ... I was just escaping Varanassi (a city which is everything your mother told you not to be) in north India, but it wasnt that simple. My train was due at 11.35pm for a 7 hour journey, so a nice overnight trip. I waited on the platform, and waited and waited. I got out my sleeping bag, sat on it, and waited. I fell asleep ... for hours on the platform (a large % of the population sem to sleep on railway platforms so I was far from alone) and when I woke my train had still not arrived. Finally it rolled in at 8am - my overnight trip was now in daylight and I was mighty pissed off at having wasted a day on a train when I should have been there by then! Eventually it got me 'there' over 10 hours late.

No-one else I met had had any problems with their trains, so I was confident that the next one I caught would be pretty much on time. Due at 8pm for a 14 hour journey, I waited on the platform thinking well if its an hour late thats not too bad. I waited all that evening, past midnight, got my sleeping bag out again, went to sleep, still no train; all night long there was no train; it got light, no train; all morning, no train. I asked why it was so late and, in a reply that was typically Indian, was told 'Late Running!' Not absolutelly satisfied with that I pressed further and was told 'Technical Problems!' Then I gave up asking (and probably swore loudly - most peole there didnt speak english anyway). That afternoon, just as I was thinking about how much confusion it would cause if it was 24 hours late (each train has a no. but there is one of that no. every day and no way to distinguish which days train it is) it turned up 16 hours late. Worst still, I had to scramble off the train at 2.45am (having stayed awake trying to guess the station we were passing through and trying to read the Hindi train signs in the dark) and then spent the rest of that night sleeping on the platform. At least then I got some sleep as I wasnt worried about missing my train!

Enough about trains (and I wont even mention the buses). I had theough that India is a place where loads of foreigners go, and in some places there are quite a few. But most places they are thin on the ground. This means that the enormity of the Indian male population sees fit to descend on you whenever they can. On the street they call out like little kids, and queue up to shake my hand. But it is at train stations where I was cornered and where no-one has anything better to do. I got completely surrounded by on one platform by about 50 guys all wanting to talk to me - only about 3 of then actually spoke english but they translated into Hindi for the benefit of the masses. Once you stop being overawed by the whole thing it can get pretty interesting - especially when you mention their favorite subject. One guy asked me 'Are you married?' to which I replied 'No'. He then looked at me in a very confused way and after a pause said 'Do you like sex?' Then I was a bit confused, until I twigged what he meant. In India marriages are arranged and there is no sex before marriage. I said in my culture you do not have to be married to have sex. Once that got translated it bought the house down, all the (presumably unmarried twentysomethings virgin) macho guys went mental, jumping around llike nuts. Eventually the crowd was broken up by the riot police (well, one policeman with a big stick) and I tried to look innocent and hide somewhere else on the platform.

In one small village I was cycling along and an old guy was walking the other way. Despite no suggestion of a uniform anywhere, he stood up straight and saluted me ... old habits perhaps.

Nearly all signs are in Hindi especially at railway stations. At one place the whole train info was entirely in Hindi apart from one sign on the platform in English 'Please do not spit.' Very helpful.

All this travel has been with purpose as I have been to a few tasty places:

- Khajuraho - Fantastic small stone temples 1,000 years old adourned with an enormous no. of carvings of incredible quality and almost perfectly preseved. Most are of everyday life, beautiful women with gravity defying chests and bums so flat that it looks like they're bottom halfs are pointing the other way. Amoungst these are what people really come for - a good collection of 'karma sutra' carvings - hardcore porn so old that it is 'art', explicit sex in interesting and often improbable positions (some needing a couple of helpers to help then into the start position) presented in film strip style with a row of carvings culminating in orgasm! Oh and there is the odd cow thrown in for good measure. Yes, it really is art. Yes, I can send you the photos. Just email me your credit card no and expiry date...

- Ajanta - A row of 30 Buddhist temples carved into a cliff on a horseshoe bend in a river. They date from 200BC. The largest is 20m x 20m inside with over 20 carved pillars, wall paintings, buddha statues etc. All instunning condition considering their age.

- Ellora - More caves carved into solid rock, but one of which is stunning. Instead of building a temple they started with a solid cliff and chipped away at the rock (apparently 7000 men for 150 years - although presumably not the same 7000 men) creating several floors, domes, towers, loads of carvings of real quality etc And all with just the rock that was there, exactly where it was. The concept is mind boggling. The reality is so good, and so like a normal (superb) temple, that I had to keep reminding myself that it was created like that. Must be the most under-hyped thing I have ever seen.

Now i am all caved out. Or should that be caved in?

- Matheran - A hill station perched on a flat topped mountain, which is reached by a 2 hour 'toy train' ride. The town has no means of transport other than hand pulled rickshaws, all the supplies have to be pulled around by 8 men pushing a cart up steep slopes. There is no traffic or even cycles. Is this really India?

And then to Goa. A very pleasant state which is not like anywhere else I had been - for a start there are as many tourists as locals, but Xmas is Xmas and Goa is one of the few mainly christion areas of India (Portuguese influence). Goa has miles of empty coastline withh great beaches all the way along it - so as usual nearly everyone crams into a couple of small beaches. We got an idyllic place right next to the beach and just a few metres above (the very basic shack was on stilts). Xmas passed by and then on morning of Dec 26th we heard about a tsunami somewhere in Indonesia. Didnt sound too serious then. That evening we were in a restaurant just above the beach when waves of water started coming over the wall into the restaurant. It seemed odd but I was more concerned that I hadn't finished my (milk) shake, but suddenly we were nearly the last people in the restaurant - the staff were the first to leave - and we exited rapidly onto the street behind where it was just panic. Indians drive autorickshaws and motorbikes like lunatics at the best of times but in a panic - it was mayhem, but when the locals start running you had better join them. A few people were hurt in the rush but I didnt see anything too bad. We found the tallest solid looking building in town and slept on the roof. Next morning the beach looked very different with some restaurants on the beach hit badly (but they were open again a few days later). The water had come up to just below our hut, but it wasnt the level of water that was the worry, it was not knowing what caused it and not knowing what was going to happen next. Apparently it was a high tide caused by the effects of the eathquake combined with what was due to be the highest tide of the month anyway.
It doesn't really bear thinking about, but if the Portuguese had built their trading post on the other side of India, facing East (and it had some nice beaches) we would probably now be just a statistic in the body count column of this event. I try not to think about it.

So that was Goa. Now it is back up north, another month and a half in India and then Pakistan...

Meantime: This is India, a land where nothing is unbelievable - except everything the locals tell you. If you ever ask a closed question (to check info etc) the reply is always 'Yes' even if they haven't understood the question. And it is always accompanied by that bloody annoying little shake of the head (that only Indians can do) which means 'Yes'. Or 'No'. Or 'I have 9 kids to feed, 2 water buffalo and some potatoes. How much will you give me for one of my kids.'

Ta ta from the land of the long wait,
and
Happy New Year!

Love
Pete

Where 29 - Varanassi, India --OR-- How to Get Past Big Sacred Cows in Narrow Alleys --OR-- How to Speak Spanish in Nepal

2004-12-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

I was just wondering where to start this one. How about :

Nepal continued...

I was in Kathmandu, but heading for 10 days of white water ... I say 10 days, actually it took 3 days on a bus to get there (see 'struck out' below) one day and night to get back, so we had 6 days on the river - plenty of time to get wet...

High fives
- The Karnali River in the far west of Nepal, a big river on its way from Tibet to India. The water was big, white, wetand cold; the paddlers were not so big, white, wet and cold. But when that grade 4 or 5 wave is heading straight for you, then emerging, with both the boat still the right way up and you still in it, is a triumph which no amount of cold water down your throat can dampen. The scenery was stunning too, narrow gorges, vertical cliffs and somehow superb beaches on which to camp everynight (why these are not washed away by the monsoon I'm not sure).

- On the flatter parts of the river we were allowed to use the safety kayakers boats to play in. They were very short boats (some of the rafters were too tall to fit in them) and almost impossible to keep straight but I did manage a Grade 2+ rapid and my first ever eskimo rolls (however a few times I didn't make it back up and just ended up sitting in an upside down boat thinking "I'm freezing cold, underwater, and upside down in an upside down boat - why the hell am I doing this!")

- After the rafting everyone else was heading for a wildlife park nearby, so I went as well (not to see the wildlife, just to chill out) and spent a week living in a mud hut without electric, water by pump, shower by bucket, cooking by fire and squat toilet. As this was far away from the normal touist places and deep in mousey-maoist controlled areas we were just about the only foreigners in the place. Gone were the locals asking for 'schoolpen' and money - here were the villagers who grinned and looked embarassed at being close to a foreigner. However, once they realised that they could see an image of themselves on the back of my camera, I was besieged by whole groups of people just wanting to stand bolt upright with severe faces, for their photo - getting them to relax and smile a bit was the most difficult part. If you are not good (and I work out how to do it, I may send you some examples). Walking around the paddy fields and tracks of this community was so refreshing. However the objective of taking a few pics of farmers ploughing their fields with oxen became an exercise in recording an image of just about every person I met (and several pics of each of their babies), being an instigator of civil unrest as people surrounded me on the dirt road and causing a huge power drain on my batteries. Simple living, simply brilliant. I couldn't ask for more.

Pains in the butt

- Walking into more mouse traps on the rafting trip in the far west on Nepal which is deep in mouse territory. We knew they were there cos we had a guide. We had to pay USD 20 each to be allowed to travel through the area by bus and then back be raft. I didn't see any guns this time but we were warned not to take any photos in Maoist areas as they like to take away your camera and not give it back. The rafting coy had to give other villagers paddles and stuff on the way down the river but had a note from the head mouse saying they didnt have to give them the raft that they asked for ! Its all such a circus. Both sides know the score - The army are heavily ensconced two hours bus ride from the mouses but there is no attempt to try and break the mouse control. Mind you , the army are equipped with very old (WW2 Vintage) Lee Enfield rifles, so maybe that is why.

- I only know one word of Nepali. After that, if they dont speak English then I automatically revert to Spanish (this is the only other language I can speak). This does not always help a great deal as their knowledge of Spanish may be limited too. Worked all right in south/central america though ... If only I could have spoken Spanish that well when I was actually with Spanish speaking people.

- Wildlife - since I ended up staying about 100 metres from the entrance to a wildlife park I though I may as well go and search (again) for tigers. After spending 2 whole days ( and a load of cash hiring guides, park fees etc) we had seen no rhino, one elephant a long way off, and no tigers. Then as we walked out of the park entrance at the end of the 2nd day, there was a real, genuine, actual rhino slumped against the gates - asleep! So we all posed with it, felt its rough armoured looking skin and looked at it horn ... until it started to move ... then we ran away ... real fast!

- Leeches - not the sort of wildlife I wanted to see close up. They are the most revolting creatures I have ever seen and when they are indulging themselves on my blood its simply not nice. Serve them a bit of salt and they get off pretty quick; however the blood keeps flowing for a while after.

- Squat toilets - you get used to the hole in the floor approach after a while, you have to, you cant hang on for ever. Apparently, they are better for your health than the horrible sit down western ones ... so we will probably see them catching on in western places soon - yeah right!

- Struck out - Getting caught in the strikes called by the mousists to demonstrate their power (in truth Nepal is not a democracy so I have to give them some leeway to demonstate, but it would be preferable to do it when I am not there) - once on the way to rafting, where we had to spend 2 nights in a village fairly near nowhere; then again when I was trying to get to the Buddha's birthplace; I left a day early to miss the strike (no-one knows when they are going to happen, they just happen) and still walked straight into 2 days of no buses. Luckily I was very close to the border at that point so ... despite thinking that the longer I had spent in Nepal the more I had liked it ... decided to quit Nepal and went to India instead ... what was I thinking of!!!

I just realised that my list of 'pains' in far longer than the 'highs' - dont be mislead, Nepal definitely gets the thumbs up.

India

I didn't mean to go there, honest, I was just on a bus one day and suddenly ... (actually it wasn't so sudden, it was after a huge amount of time, filling in a small amout of paperwork) I was in India and everything was more packed, more dirty and much more trouble than before.

When you are the only one (foreigner that is, locals cross the border unrestricted) in the queue at the border, you begin to think why am I the only one crossing over here ...

After a 5 hour shared taxi ride, crammed into a very old 'Ambassador Classic' car, and a puncture, I arrived in Lucklow hoping to get a train out that night to Varanasi. I had no idea how the booking system worked and all the signs were in Hindi (a language nothing like Spanish), and finding someone who spoke English was more than a bit tricky - even trickier was getting two different people to agree on where I had to go to get a ticket. Eventually I found a window with a smaller than normal scrum outside and after some barging and shouting found I had to come back at 9pm to try and get on the 11pm night train. I went back before 9pm (when the magic 'spare seats and beds' printout arrives to find a huge scrum at the said window, and got stuck in. The game is simple: Fill in a train request form. Put on your biggest backpack with daysac on your front (these not only give protection and added weight, but also if the swivel move is used, causes significant damage points against the opposition). Stand in an orderly line and as soon as people from the back charge round the side the game is on - you have to get your form through the tiny gap in the ticket window, from any angle, preferably with hand still attached, and get the official to give attention to your form. I am bigger than most Indians (although not all, as the pot bellied gentleman was keen to make clear) so after 30 minutes of unsporting behaviour, and some brief reforming of the line by an official with a big stick (a sort of half-time, no oranges), I finally succeeded. My form got attention! Victory. But there were no spaces on the train! Bugger. A complete waste of time. Resigned to having to spend a night in a hotel, I asked how I could get a ticket for the 7am day train the next day -
'Come back here at 4.30am' he said.
'You're joking!'
He wasn't.

So ventured into streets in the dark amidst traffic, every vehicle of which was trying to kill me (this must be another game I haven't figured out yet), smoke from fires lit in the road, a herd of cows getting in the way of everything and people jammed in everywhere there wasn't anything else.

After spending (part of) the night at an overpriced hotel I crawled to the station along emptier streets (the cows were sitting down by now) at 5am in dense fog. There was only a small queue and 'the game' wasn't on. I got my ticket after about 10 mins. even after a female pushed-in right in front of me (yes, they really are allowed to do that - even though it doesn't really fit in with 'the game', it does keep women interested in the sport which is presumably the reason for the rule). Then I got my train, 45 mins late due to said fog, and got to Varanasi that afternoon (2 hours late arriving - due to being 45 mins late leaving).

And it was when I got to the old city in Varanasi that I found out that, so far, my introduction to India had been a gentle one. A huge area along the west bank of the Ganges (India's holiest river) is a maze of tiny alleyways threaded between 5 storey buildings, crammed with shops, people, pot bellied cows and large mounds of their steaming dung.

Question: If you are facing the backside of a large cow taking up over half the width of an alleyway and the remaining narrow gap is heavily mined with cow dung, then, bearing in mind that you are wearing open toed sandals, what do you do?
A) Wait for it to move
B) Wait for a local to push it out of the way
C) Try and push the cow out of the way yourself
D) Go another way to your destination
E) Go via the mined route but skip delicately over the dung
F) Walk through the minefield and get covered in shit, or worse, lose a sandal in it.

If you answered:
A - You are still waiting there.
B - No chance, almost all locals are Hindu and they wouldn't want the bad karma of pushing a sacred cow.
C - You will have got beaten up by the locals ('cos you are not as sacred as the cow)
D - You will get hopelessly lost in the alleys and are never seen again OR
If you do know where you are going - you end up in another alley facing the backside of a large cow taking up over half the width of an alleyway and the remaining narrow gap is heavily mined with cow dung. Then you have 6 options ...
E - Ha Ha! the cow moves as it feels you try to squeeze past and you end up covered in shit and get slammed into the wall by the cow.
F - You are a local.

Enough about cows for now!

Varanasi is an assault on all your senses including several you didnt know you had - burning bodies, dung, rotting veg - what more do you want. It is an education, even a priviledge to experience it all. Everything is in your face - all the time - and if something is clean, it wont be for long.

It all happens down at the river which is lined with ghats (platforms) where everything happens. If you are cremated here you go straight to moksha (Nirvana) escaping the cycle of life, death and rebirth (the aim of Hindus) even if you have had a bad life ( seems a bit easy to me). So 150-200 people are cremated on the ghats of the ganges every day, in public with crowds of onlookers. It is sobering watching bodies burn, educational, thought provoking and very hot. Thinly covered bodies and laid on 200kg of prime wood and burnt. It takes about 3 hours, during which the skull is smashed to release the soul and the remains are chucked into the ganges. Within spitting distance are the top bathing spots for Hindus - this is both ritual bathing and to get physically clean, although whether you are actually cleaner when you get out is anyones guess (I didn't give it a go). And in amongst all this are the dohbee-wallahs who are responsible for the city's laundry, and this is where they wash all the clothes. If this wasn't enough this slowly moving river is where most of the garbage is chucked. Thank god I am here in the winter and not the even hotter summer when the place must really stink.

Some more plusses
- The food and drink are great. Marvellous thalis (curries), dhosas (pancakes) and masalas (mixed spices). And then there are the sweets - they are very sweet but after trying a few (not all at once) I have managed to pick a few which are tasty without being sickly.
- There is a Hindu festival here just about every day.

Some more Minusses
- There is a Hindu festival here just about every day. And they really are getting a bit the same. Exactly the same in fact, except as the festival reaches its climax there are more participants and more people watching. And then there is a huge crush and - well it very nearly ended up in bad news last night when whilst waiting for ritual to start there was some major pushing (reminds me of the terraces of English footy matches in the early 1980s).
- There is no alcohol served in the old town - it all to do with the holy influence.
- Hygiene? One restaurant even advertises itself with the slogan 'Yes, We are less dirty...' and fearful of the lack of hygiene I am moving rapidly towards vegetarianism.
- The Scams - Everyone is out to scam any foreigner. Well almost everyone, but trying to sort out the 10% of people who are making casual conversation or genuinely trying to help from the 90% who protest their innocence but are really rolling out a scam to e.g. get money for non-existant lepers, is very difficult.

So fearful of another scam or another Hindu festival starting tonight I am on the night train out of here - heading south ...

Bye for now
Pete

Where 28 - Kathmandu, Nepal --OR-- How to Make a 'Voluntary Donation' at Gunpoint... And Get a Receipt

2004-11-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Part of the idea of coming south over the winter was to avoid all that cold weather and snow. Maybe when I thought that, I had forgotten that the Himalayas in Nepal are actually pretty high (8 of the world's 10 higgest peaks are in Nepal) and the word himalaya means 'abode of snows'.
A bad start. Also the Annapurnas (the mountains I wanted to walk around) reach over 8,000m high ( there are only 14 peaks over 8,000m in the world), so maybe I had picked the wrong spot. Fortunately the trekking route doesn't go up to the top but gets up to 5,416m - and surely no chance of snow at that level during the early autumn peak trekking season!

Sally joined me for the first month cos she wanted to walk round snowy mountains as well (or something like that). The trek took us 18 days to complete. The first 8 days were almost constant uphill, but not too steep, passing through numerous Tibetan influenced villages (Tibetans came across from Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese strengthened their control there). These were often medieval villages crammed with traditional stone houses and topped off with numerous tall, colourful (prayer) flags fluttering in the breeze like an encampment of knights in armour preparing for a joust.

There are no roads, or motorised transport (everything is transported by mule or human) but plenty of rivers to cross, so the first few days are spent taking photos of mule trains and narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges. Then I realised that I had taken pictures of nothing else but mule trains and narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges and never took any pictures of either mule trains or narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges ever again.

Once we reached 3,500m we stopped for a day to acclimatise and then restricted ourselves to 400m vertical increase each day to try and avoid getting AMS (acute mountain sickness). We reached the heights where no one lived but fortunately, enterprising locals had built tea-houses where we could stay the night. The prices of food increases with the altitude as everything has to be either grown locally or brought up the track by mule, and at the furthest point we were 9 days walk from the nearest road, and apparently it is difficult to grow beer and coke at altitude.

The weather had been great - clear blue sky mornings, sometimes becoming cloudy in the afternoon. It got a bit 'misty' at about 4,000m but no chance of snow.
A bit of a shock next morning then to awaken to a white out. It was still gently coming down, but we decided to trek on as long as we could follow the path, and if it did get dangerousl we could always turn back. Trekking higher up a snowy mountain with only trekking poles (I now understand why they look so much like ski poles) seemed a bit insane but there were other people with guides to follow (Sally and I decided we didnt need a guide or porter). Then we met a whole herd of yak coming the other way. A yak is a cross between a cow and a woolly mammoth, with a huge coat and big horns; very similar to a Yeti in fact. We were going up the mountain whilst the animal that has eveolved over millions of years to cope with such conditions was going the other way! Worst still, the yaks were coming down the only path straight at us. Now the path was only about 'this' wide, whilst a Yak is at least 'THIS' wide! And you dont want to stand in the way of a yak in full migratory mode. So us less intelligent beings scrambled up the hillside and let the more intelligent beasts pass.

We made it to 4,500m that day and waited for the snow to stop. Fortunately it had by 4am the next morning when many people left to ascend the (vertical) 900m to the top of the pass and then (vertical) 1,600m down the other side. We left at 5am - still dark - and followed a trail of lights up the mountain. It was very steep and the snow was up to 30cm deep. It had been -4C in the tea house bedroom and was -11C on the mountain, so it didnt take long for my fingers and toes to go numb. I was praying for the sun to warm me up a bit. By 7am we were in sun, stumbling slowly upwards. The air is very thin at this altitude and it was very hard work especially carrying up to 20kg of stuff on my back. The snow was perfect - I have skied in far worse snow than this - but here I was walking in it! Mountains everywhere, blue sky, white snow ... and an enless upward trudge - well for Sally it was endless, I spent most of the time waiting for her every few metres as she seemed to be suffering a bit with the thin air. It took us 6 hours to get to the top and what an effort it was. Ater an hours rest, at midday we zoomed down the other side (now skies would have been good) helped by the ever thickening air and the knowledge that if we didnt get down by 6pm it would be dark, and there was no way I could have stood the cold on that pass for a night. We made it by 4pm to a place with 'hot showers' - unfortunately solar panels covered in snow do not hot showers make. I did get my nose badly sunburnt though - very silly.

The pass was about halfway so we still had a large part of the 230km to trek, but at least now it was getting warmer as we went, prices getting cheaper, beer back towards a pound a pint, we were nearly back to civilisation. And then we walked into a Maoist trap; not a mouse trap, although that is similar, I mean a trap set by an admirer of chairman Mao. The Maoists have been engaged in a civil war for 8 years and control 80% of the country (mainly the uninhabited bits!). He was just sitting casually on a wall, though he did have a big scar on his face, and politely enquired if I would like to contribute to Maoist funds. I said not and then a walking conversation ensued with he saying I should and me not being absolutely keen. Then he produced a handgun, not a very sophisticated gun, but it was a gun. Suddenly the Maoist cause seemed to have an indefinable appeal, a very worthy cause in fact. Luckily he accepted about GBP8 for the two of us and gave me a receipt to show that this was not in fact robbery but a genuine donation, and in case I came across any other Maoists, so I could prove I had already paid. Very thoughtful!

Other (Natural) Highs
- Tiger hunting - a 2 days in the National Park looking for Tigers. Unfortunately we were on foot. Fortunately our 2 guides were heavily armed with small sticks! Fortunately we didn't see any tigers. We did see a sloth bear, which I was expecting to be a small cuddly bear, but it was enormous - bigger than me - big, black and and dangerous although it did have a cute nose.
- Elephant trekking - sitting on them, looking for rhinos. Very bumpy it was as well, but we did get to see some Greater one horned rhino. They look like they are covered in sheets of armour, but it is just thick skin folded over to make it look like they are covered in sheets of armour - Oh it works! Impressive though.
- Kathmandu, capital and largest city, is like the traffic of London in the narrow streets of York. Tiny streets crammed with cars, motorbikes, people, bikes plus occasional cows. How they all get passed each other is a mystery, but it doees seem to happen, although if they miss you by more than a cm then they consider that a wide margin.
- Old Stuff - Kathmandu and around has squares crammed with 14th to 18th century temples and palaces, all still in use. They are in great condition and laced with erotic carvings (positions from the Karma Sutra) sometimees involving elepants and tortoises; Oh, and of course they are of great religious significance. Some of the temples have fierce guardians to protect them - normally small tortoises or monkeys. Many of the backstreets are untouched by time (buildings dont geet knocked down here, they either fall down or just stay there); narrow streets with ancient wobbly 4 storey buildings holding each other up, and tiny courtyards; people crammed into such small spaces, living so close together - like walking through London before the great fire of 1666 perhaps. Such history they have here, but there is so much of it they dont give it a second thought (except to charge foreigners if they want to see it!)
- Oh, and most Nepali trucks are covered in huge Union Jacks. Haven't been able to find out why yet though.

Other Confusing bits
- Religion is a bit confused (well I find it confusing) - most people are Hindu, but many of the temples are Buddhist (Buddha was born in Nepal about 2,500 years ago). But Hindus claim that Buddha is the 9th incarnation of their god Vishnu, so enabling them to worship at any Buddhist temple, where they have also added shrines to numerous hindu gods. So you go into a nice clean Tibetan Buddhist temple (often huge stupas - like an upside down ice-cream cone) which then get invaded by hoards of Hindus queuing up to chuck rice and other offreings (mainly food) over their favorite god, and leaving little piles of embers all over the place for unsuspecting people to burn their feet on. Its all a bit confusing, but this is their religion and as messy as it is and as many flies as the piles of food attract, I have to respect that. I think I may get bored of Hindu temples pretty soon though...... Er Yep, bored now.

Other Crap bits
- The roads, if you can call them that are worse than dirt tracks. So the buses go really slowly, and really bumpily, especially if you happen to be crammed onto the back seat. Enough said (although I could moan on at length).

And now Sally has gone home and I am off to do a bit of rafting in the far west of Nepal for 10 days - back into Maoist country, (I'll keep an eye open for those mouse traps), then south to India.

Bye for now
Pete

Where 27 - Mexico City --OR-- Eyeball to Eyeball with Nurse Sharks, Sea Horses and Sea Cows

2004-05-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

HI there,

Last time I had just arrived in Belize. After 1 week on a tiny island there, I headed North into Mexico and spent 3 weeks getting across from the scorching Yucutan Penninsular to choking Mexico City via various interesting mountain towns and colonial cities.

Belize (previously British Honduras)
Spent a week on Caye Caulker, a few km long but only 200m across, a sort of really laid back place with loads of snorkelling opportunities. And they speak English! Paradise in so many ways...
Plus points
- Nurse sharks, up to 2m long, cruise the reef and shallows. They have unusual tails for sharks, long and wavy, plus really small eyes. A few of us went out with an old guy on a boat who claimed he was best friend of the family that lived in that area having rescued one years ago and these were the descendents. I took that with a large pinch of seawater as we snorkelled around the boat watching these timid creatures. Then he got in and they went straight up to him and swum next to him, following him around for the next hour, even though he wasn’t feeding them. I don’t normally touch anything alive underwater as they are wild animals, but these sharks seemed to be loving the attention, being stroked and not caring if they bumped into us or we into them. Sharks are great fish, I wouldn’t describe them as friendly, but then there are always exceptions!
- Manatees (dugongs, sea cows) – odd animals a bit like sea lions only much slower. They are quite rare and didn’t get to see a great deal of them but I can tell you that they are bulky with noses like cows and tails like semi-circular fans. Unexciting? Definitely. But interesting just ‘cos they’re different!
- Sting rays – huge flying saucers over 1m diameter plus another metre for the tail. Beautiful to watch in motion as they flap their wings so gracefully as they swarmed around us in the shallows. They are not dangerous unless you stand on the sting, which is at the base of the tail. However, when they form a carpet around your feet it is difficult not to stand on them, though luckily I didnt stand on the wrong bit!
- Coral, large green moray eels, spotted eagle rays, queen trigger fish (possibly the most beautiful fish I have encountered), dolphins and disco fish (small dark fish inlaid with bright blue luminous jewels). And stacks more – great snorkelling.
- Last, smallest, slowest but definitely the most surprising: sea horses. Just 5-7cm high they cling underwater to small branches with their tail and hang on as they are weak swimmers. They come in brown, yellow and orange and are as an intricately designed as I could imagine (like one of those airfix kits with tiny parts where most of the glue ends up between your fingers), with (relatively) enormous snouts. The males look after the fertilised eggs in a pouch so it is they that are pregnant (don’t go getting any ideas now…)

Minus Stuff
- its expensive – but then it’s worth it. After all it is Paradise! - did I mention that already?

Mexico
Large parts of Mexico are the same as Central America but with (a lot) more VW Beetles. However, some parts are a little different.

Expected bits
Mexico has been populated for about 20,000 years by Asians who crossed the land bridge across the Bearing Strait during the last ice age. About 1,200BC they started forming organised, structured civilisations, the first of these being the Olmecs (at their height 1,200BC to 900BC) followed by numerous others, the most famous being Mayas (peaked 250AD – 900AD) and Aztecs (peaked 1400AD – 1519AD). Despite having a capital city of 200,000 people (built where Mexico City is today) the Aztecs could not resist a small force of Spaniards who arrived in 1519 and within 2 years had dismantled the whole civilisation. Each civilisation left its own cities and buildings celebrating their beliefs, gods and religious practices. The most impressive being:
- Chichen Itza (Maya with Toltec influence) with magnificent pyramid and a huge ballcourt where a rubber ball would have to be put through a hoop by use of elbows and hips only in the lowest scoring game ever. One goal would determine the winner and the losing captain (or sometimes the winning captain) would be sacrificed.
- Palenque (Maya) – Surrounded by jungle, the pyramids here contain tombs (very unusual in this continent).
- Uxmal (Maya) – More Pyramids and complex geometric patterns, plus rain gods with noses like elephants trunks.
- Teotihuacan – Including the 3rd largest pyramid in the world built around 300AD.

Unfortunately the Spanish built over or destroyed most of the Aztec sites although there are a lot of buildings underneath colonial Mexico City.

- There are of course plenty of colonial towns with fantastic buildings, plazas and cathedrals and streets on a grid system – the Spanish were advanced at town planning.
- With total Spanish control the indigenous people were reduced to the bottom of the society, a place they still firmly occupy. Odd (and sad) that the peoples who built such great civilisations thousands of years ago, now live at an economic and artistic level below that which they had then.

Unexpected bits
- Cenote snorkelling – most of the Yucutan Penninsular (the bit that sticks out to the east) is flat limestone with hardly any surface water. The water has formed numerous caves and caverns underground, the tops of which have collapsed and become accessible through vents. Snorkelling through tiny caves, cramped between floor, roof, stalagmites and stalactites and often squeezing through minute gaps (at water surface level) is a weird experience.
- Off the Pacific coast in deep water on a boat we saw manta rays launching themselves out of the water several metres into the air before crashing back into the water in an uncontrolled dive. We jumped in the water and I came across a huge ‘shoal’ of about 200 manta rays each about 1m across just a couple of metres below me – incredible sight.
- The biggest single biomass in the world (or so they claim). Its just a tree, 42m high, 58m truck circumference and a total volume (presumable including root system) of 817,000m3. And it is over 2,000 years old.
- Sleeping in hammocks for a while (it was cheap, and Yucutan peninsular isn’t, but it is warm at night). Got fed up of it after a while and went back to sleeping in dorms.
- The indigenous Zatopec people commenerate the uprising in 1990’s by selling dolls with guns dressed all in black plus balaclavas – very striking and surely an angle the Barbie doll people have missed!
- We visited a church in an indigenous village. The locals were forced to convert to Catholicism when the Spanish arrived, but this church suggest otherwise. Firstly, from the outside it is a normal church. Inside it is completely empty of furniture other than a small altar and 22 saints in glass cases around the walls (no seating at all). At the focus of the building stands St John the Baptist who is the local patron saint and the centre of any formal worship (Jesus ranks about 5th). The building is choked with incense smoke. Pine needles cover the floor giving a feel of nature whilst people sit on the floor in small groups staring at large groups of candles of differing colours, each colour referring to a part of the body that they are praying for. If you are very ill then a live chicken is used and waved over the candles, then often sacrificed. Each saint has a 3 day festival with much smoke, incense, fireworks and a procession where they take him ‘out for a walk’ around the church square. And most surprising of all the whole ‘congregation’ are in church drinking coca-cola, pepsi and fanta as they have been told by the marketing men that these drinks help you burp which releases the evil spirits from within. Clearly indigenous religion practiced under a thin veil of Catholicism with more than a hint of ‘Well what did the Spanish ever do for us?’ Monty Python couldn’t have done it better.

- Mexico City – A sprawling megopolis of over 22 million people. However it is not as bad as I thought. Most of it is like any other very busy modern city but with a liberal dusting of smog and an even liberaler scattering of VW Beetles.

Other things I learned during this trip:
- It is possible to fit 32 people and all their luggage in and on a 15 seat minibus.
- ‘Carga Larga’ is a long load and not a type of beer.
- ‘No Banarse’ is not an organisation in favour of liberalisation of nudity (it just means No Bathing).
- A ‘Joyeria’ is a jewellers, not a brothel.

And a bit about the food
- If that damp rag aroma of another tortilla catches my nostrils, I will puke. Before this trip I used to like them!

And so fearing the tortillas may rise up and rebel, I caught a flight back to London and home where I will be for a while at least. If you want to meet up for a pint of lager, rice, beans and tortillas, then sod off. If you can stretch to real English beer and cashew nuts then mail me!!

See ya
Luv
Pete

Where 26 - Caye Caulker, Belize --OR-- How to get Out of El Salvador Without getting In

2004-04-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

Have progressed from El Salvador via Guatemala I am now on a tiny island just off the coast of Belize.

Some border crossings are easy others are not - El Salvador was a shining example of both.
To get in from Honduras I crossed at a remote border point in the north east of the country. Usual thing, 5am bus and within a couple of hours got to the Honduran border point, got passport stamped and into El Salvador for a look at the guerrilla headquarters (the civil war is over now though, honest) and asked where we could get stamped into El Salvador. ´Not here!´ was the reply. Apparently the area around the border where I crossed is disputed so El Sal will not recognise anyone who crosses there. I was told I would have to go to the border with Hondras in the East of El Sal to get a stamp. Luckily it is a small country. It took several buses and several hours to get there, and, after queuing, I got stamped in without problem. But as soon as the border official stamped it she decided that the exit stamp from Honduras wasn´t an exit stamp at all but just a control stamp. After arguing the case unsuccessfully, I had to walk across the bridge back into Honduras, join another long scrum and try and get an exit stamp. The border officials there were confused as I didnt have the Tourist card I should have had as it had been taken from me at the original Honduran exit point. So after explaining it all and filling in more forms he was then happy. Except that he then noticed I had already been stamped into El Sal and so didnt require a Honduran exit stamp. Try explaining to a border official that you have been stamped into a country by mistake and you will get the feel of what followed - but he eventually stamped me out and, after walking back across the bridge (all the time carrying all my stuff), and joining yet another mob of people trying to form a line, the El Sal people let me in (again!). Only most of the day wasted. What a farce.

Exiting El Sal to Guatemala was slightly different. On both sides of the (inevitable) bridge are border officials from Both countries. There was no queue. I had to fill in a form, was stamped out in seconds and walked 5 metres to a Guatemalan official, who took even less time over stamping me in (even though I wasn´t ´in´ Guatemala yet). And that was it. The moral of this must run something like -If you ever go to El Salvador, only exit, never enter it!

Apart from that El Sal should be noted for:
- The island of Cashew nuts. Just in case you didnt know (and I didnt) they grow on trees with the fruit the same size and colour as a red sweet pepper except that it is upside down. Where the stem should be (underneath) is a cresent shaped pod which contains one single cashew nut. The fruit can be eaten straight away and is very juicy, although with the volume of even cottage industry production (which it is) there are far too many fruits for the few islanders to eat. The pod is very tough and has to be dried in the sun for 3 days before it is cracked open between a rock and a hard place, dug out (hopefully still whole), cleaned a bit and then baked. All that for one single cashew nut - now you know why they are so expensive.
- A new volcano which was flat land until 1770, but is now over 1000m high. Next to it there is a slightly taller volcano where a hotel was built in the 1950s so people could watch the volcano erupting from above! Unfortunately, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano which had continuously erupted for nearly 200 years, stopped and has stayed stopped! A marvellous black cone is the result, and of course, a great view of it from the (closed) hotel.
- In El Sal (and only here) they have bottles of ´Salsa Ingles´ (English Sauce) which has in tiny writing on the bottle ´Worcestershire Sauce´. Marvellous!
- Coffee - large portions of South and Central America are famous for their coffee and I have tried it in various places, but ... the locals always serve it black, weak and with loads of sugar. Thats how they like it (and normally the sugar is already added).
- Worst though is the litter - it is everywhere including beauty spots - every few cms is a piece of litter, some foil sweet wrapper, a piece of blue plastic. It is really difficult to express just how bad it is. I could walk from one end of the country to the other without ever touching the ground! At first it is dissapointing in what is otherwise a beautiful country; after a few days it became depressing. And no-one here could care one bit - I guess it is too far gone for that - and they really do have other priorities.
- Best is the people - really friendly.

Enough of little El Sal - Guatemala is much more interesting ....

- Transport is so cheap here - US$1 for several hours of travel usually. It is really uncomfortable (old US school buses - just like on the Simpsons), they are crammed worse than any I have been on ever, you have to get up in the dark to catch them and the roads aren´t always the best, but some of the scenery is pretty impressive (if you can see out of the window).
- I think I mentioned last time that the smaller and more insignificant the town you are in, the earlier the only bus of the day leaves. One evening I arrived in a remote mountain village, with one very basic hotel, and realising that I would have to stay the night, checked out the bus times the next day. There was only one bus east I was told and that left at 3am - but was advised to be there at least half an hour beforehand as it got really full !!! This must be the earliest a bus can leave - as if it were any earlier it would be a really late bus! Luckily, by good planning and ... er ... luck, I was heading west and had a choice of two buses. I chose the 5.30am bus. The other one was at 4am.

If you do ever get to catch the bus there are some great places to see though -
- Tikal - a Mayan site now resting in the jungle. It contains several pyramids (tallest 44m high) and many other buildings built between 200 BC and 700 AD. The civilisation collapsed around 900 AD although it is not known why.
- Semuc Champey - In the middle of nowhere a series of fantastic limestone pools containing turquoise water with a raging torrent swirling through a tunnel directly beneath. Great for swimming in (the pools that is). Nearby we went cave exploring with a guide and candles (which tend to go out when you get them wet - there is a design flaw there) and ended up climbing underground waterfalls (with the help of a rope), squeezing through gaps and jumping into (hopefully) deep pools -not quite what I had expected but great fun...
- Mountain towns where everyone wears traditional dress, almost like a uniform. The women always manage intricately woven and embroidered jackets with long wrap around skirts. In Todos Santos, the men also wear an unusual outfit - all the men were in vertically striped red and white trousers which made them look like either prisoners, or as if they had just got out of bed. In places like this you have little option but to eat where the locals do, so had weak hot chocolate and sweet sponge cake for breakfast - odd!
-Watching/feeling thousands of bats scream out of a cave just after sunset. I just stood there and trusted them to fly around me. They did.
- Lake Atilan -beautiful. Lake, volcanoes etc. Very nice but be careful on sunny afternoons ... and be prepared to run. Fast! (see Easter Extra post)
- Antigua - Fantastic colonial town full of ruined churches (ruined in 1773 earthquake and never restored), cobbled streets and colonial houses. And they go mad over Easter (Holy week to be precise) when there are almost endless religious parades walking round the streets, day and night. Even the tablecloths in the restaurant are purple for the duration. The locals prepare carpets made of coloured sawdust, flowers, fruits, vegetation etc depicting scenes from bible and animals. The procession contains thousands of participants all dressed similarly, copious amounts of smoke and usually a very large plinth with a religious image on it (Jesus or his mum are the favorites) carried by up to 80 people staggering under the weight. They all walk straight through the carpets, so destroying them. And then the locals start making another one for the next procession. The amount of effort put in is incredible!
However, they do NOT have chocolate easter eggs. So save me some!

Guatemala is the most interesting place in Cental America by some distance - not without problems though.

Unfortunately I have managed to get ill again! (3rd time this trip) which is a real pain, but have managed to scrape myself over the border to Belize and onto a small island about 200m wide, surrounded by part of the worlds second largest barrier reef. More about that next time ...

Only 3 weeks left of this trip now, so will be trying to cram in a bit of Mexico before flying out of Mexico City and getting home on 10 May.

Luv Pete

Where 25 and a Half ! --OR-- Running for MY Life!!

2004-04-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

HI Peeps,

I guess that it had to happen sometime. But when I think back to a total of 2 years worth of dark alleys that I have trod, streets wandered during the early hours, dodgy cities stayed in and dubious situations faced, I still cannot believe that it happened like this.

It had just passed 3 o´clock in the afternoon, a bright sunny afternoon at one of Guatemalas top beauty spots, Lake Atilan. I taken a boat across the lake at 9am and had been walking back round the lake ever since. It is a volcanic crater filled with beautiful blue water up to a depth of 350 metres, surrounded by steep cliffs and dominated by several volcanoes. There were plenty of people about, mainly villagers from the clusters of houses around the lake. I had finished the most interesting part of the walk along the steep sides and through the small vegetable patches the locals farm when I made it to the main road, the only one that leads way from the lake, and which skirts one end of it. The road, which led all the way back to San Pedro,the town where I was staying, was a proper road i.e. tarmaced and with pickups and lorries along it every few minutes. I had decided to get a ride on a pickup back to San Pedro but after walking along it for 15 mins all the traffic seemed to be going the other way.

I reached a straight part of the road. It was quiet. I passed two guys up a tree, cutting branches for cooking on (and occasionally heating if the weather demanded it). Piles of logs outside the wooded houses are a feature here, reminiscent of European alpine homes, although the level of neatness is significantly different. I walked on about 50 metres before I heard something behind me, I glanced round and saw the two guys from the tree running after me.

Here comes trouble! I thought, no doubt they want to try and sell me something or ask me for money. When I turned properly one of them was only a few metres away and approaching rapidly. He was screaming something. I couldn´t make it out entirly, but caught the work dinero (money) and saw that he held his machette (everyone here carries them) in a very aggressive position high above his head. The other guy was a further 5 metres behind but held his machette with similar intensity. I looked at the nearest guys face and was shocked at the wrath and anger dispayed on it. From this I gathered fairly quickly what they wanted.

But I thought ´You´ve got to be kidding, there is no way that you can be trying to rob me here, in broad daylight, on a nice sunny afternoon, on a main road, with so many people nearby. What do you really want?´

I stopped and they both ran around in front of me blocking my way forward. One stood about 4 metres away - I guessed he was only about 14-15 years old. The other was just two metres away and was a couple of years older, both with machettes poised in attack mode. He screamed out again, and I froze momentarily. I knew I only had about Q70 (Pounds 5) with me which I was (reluctantly) willing to hand over although I wasn´t really keen to give them the things in my daysack.

But that momentary pause for thought was too long for them. Too late I registered he had a metal chain in his left hand. I didn´t see much of a swing as my attention was focused on his machette, but I saw something coming and twisted sufficiently for it to crack diagonally across my back. It hurt like hell, but now I had turned and was facing the open road back the way I had come. I wasn´t gonna stand there and be hit, and I didn´t need many microseconds to be in full flight. For some reason I thought I would be faster than them - I had no doubt about that even in sandals and with a daysac - although what I based that on I´m not entirely sure. I'm no slouch over a few metres, but they were a lot younger and could have been real fast. But there was no way they were gonna catch me. I was gone.

Fifty metres down the road I glanced back, pleased to see that they were not swishing at my back, but were rapidly leaving the scene in another direction. I kept running for another minute in case they tried to cut through the trees and head me off. Then I met a pickup coming the other way and scrambled on board. If only it had come a couple of minutes earlier. If only! That pickup was the best Q1.5 (10p)I have ever spent.

I´ve always said that it is more important to be luckily than to be careful. I´m normally pretty careful. Now I know that it also helps to be fairly fast!

More soon.
Pete

Where 25 Suchitoto, El Salvador --OR-- The Truth about Central America

2004-03-22T06:43:00.000-08:00

Several countries have flown past since last time and I am now in a small colonial town in El Salvador in thge midst of the countries elections. The voting was today and the result is expected in about an hours time. It is expected to be really close between the far right and the far left - this town is far left so I´m expecting a party if they win - if not I´ll keep my head down. Fireworks are already going off everywhere in anticipation ....

Since surfing(?) in San Juan, Nicaragua (it was hard work as the wind was really strong and the waves irreguar, but I managed to catch a few - and took a few tumbles) I went north via a couple of other Nicaraguan towns into Honduras where I went out to a carribbean island Utila for a week and then to the Mayan site of Copan, before winding my way along terrible roads and crossing into El Salvador.

It occurred to me that there are loads of things that I have become so used to in Central America that I dont write about - so just for entertainment(?) here are a few of them:
- appalling roads and uncomfortable buses together forming a journey which can be meaured on the richter scale.
- rice and beans for nearly every meal- power and water cuts (always just when you need them!)
- poverty
- wooden and tin shacks (houses) that your old garden shed would put to shame
- rubbish - its everywhere and the whole population of central america is on a personal quest to make more!
- hanging washing on barbed wire (there is no other type of wire here, but at least the barbs stop it blowing away)
- school children in shirts that are brilliant white (no on else wears white) despite the grime and poverty just how do they get their whites that white without washing machines? Maybe elbow grease is best after all.
- Gangs of large vultures (dont known what the correct collective noun is perhaps someone can let me know) gathering in trees waiting to pounce on roadkill.
- strings of volcanos
- packed local buses (there is no other sort) with chickens carried in individual plastic bags (live ones that is ).
- cold showers - I went without hot water for over a month - and haven´t had a bath since before Xmas....
- going to a different country just to see if the wet cold stuff they call beer is any better in the next country - it never is!
- Hawkers everywhere on the streets on the buses in the restaurants
- not being able to find the comma key on these strange keyboards!
- Carts pulled by Oxen and occasionally horses.
- Seeing men wearing real cowboy hats and trying not to laugh.
- Being woken at 4am by cockerels, parrots, howler monkeys, buses etc who think it is time to get up (it doesnt get light til gone 5.30am).
- Getting to remote villages and finding that the only bus of the day in the direction I want to go in goes before it gets light - typically the more remote the village the earlier the bus leaves.
- Communal bathrooms in hostels with a familiar combination of damp smells: shit and mint toothpaste!

More specifically ..........
Nicaragua
Bad bits- I hate the supermarkets give me small change which no where else (other than supermarkets) accepts (the coins are not worth that much) so I end up carrying a pocketfull of change which is worthless.
- Cloud Forests - Despite my earlier bad experiences I managed to convince myself to visit another one. When will I learn that the only thing I will see in a cloud forest are clouds and forest. And of course it is always raining, just to make sure the enticing list of animals listed in my book, dont make an appearance!
- Local people standing by big holes in the road leaning on spades and the like trying to collect money from passing cars for repairing the road. It all seems a bit community spirted until I realised that all the locals do is try and collect money from passing cars and they never actually do any repairs. Lets face it, if they did they would have no hole to stand next to and try and collect money - the cars would just whizz past!

Honduras Good stuff- Diving on Utila, supposedly the cheapest place in the world to dive - 10 dives for $125 (approx GBP 70) still maintaining decent safety standards. There is some good coral as well both soft and hard and a lot of fish. Apart from two beautiful Hawksbill turtles the best thing I saw was a Frogfish which is technically a fish but which sits on a rock (deep underwater) and has evolved its fins to grip the rock. It just looked like a bright yellow blob!
- Copan - a city with about 15,000 people which was occupied between 1,000BC to 1,000 AD. The best architecture and sculpture come from the period of the ruler King 18 Rabbit (yes that really was his name) who ruled from 9 July 695 to 3 May 738 AD. The people were very advanced and organised and wrote down their history in hieroglyphics which is how we know so much about them (like dates and kings etc). The area was abandoned when the population became too large for the agriculture to support (a lesson for us there somewhere). This is the first Mayan site I have seen but there will be loads more, but whilst this was small by Mayan city standards it does have the highest standard of architectural evolution and carving found at any Mayan site.

Bad News- Having to get up when the little hand was nearest the 4 to get the only bus of the day (which turned out NOT to be an old US school bus (yes like in the Simpsons), but a cramped mini van I can only describe as being between scrapyards), to suffer 4 hours on a bumpy dirt road through beautifal mountain scenery. I´m not saying there wasn´t much legroom cos I dont want to complain too much but I should mention that the previous occupant of that very seat, a small woodlouse (called woody) who had suffered an unfortunate accident and had had all his legs amputated above the knee, was moved to write a letter of complaint to the bus company on this very subject. You get the picture.
- Even will all this ínteresting´bus travel I seemed to get stuck in a series of villages which were a bit colonial, a bit dirty and a bit boring.

El Salvador
Happy Stuff- Food - just to go somewhere where the staple is not rice is a joy. Here it is thick dry tortillas instead (a bit like pitta bread). Often you can get these filled with cheese, bean paste and occasionally fried pòrk fat (very tasty). Fried yucca makes a great snack ( a cross between fried potatoes and fried parsnips and looks very much like the latter).For breakfast they normally serve an odd combination of Refried beans, sour cream, bread, white cheese, scrambles egg and half an avocado.
- The people. Just really friendly and ever so helpful. Just ask any passer by for directions and even if it is out of their way they will virtually escort you there themselves. Of course this is probably linked to their not being many travellers here. Perhaps because of ...

Sad Stuff- The rubbish. Its incessant. Everywhere. And none of the nice people care a bit that they are destroying what is an otherwise beautiful country. They are mad or uneducated. Either way they all chuck rubbish on the ground or out of the bus window at the first opportunity - cos then it ceases to exist (or some rational like that). It makes my attempts at taking my rubbish with me and finding a bin seem completely futile. This is not a rich country but it is by no means the poorest - they have no excuse!
- As a result the sides of the road are approaching at least the international standard required for ´water resistance´. If it carries on for the same way the ropadsides can be expected to reach full ´waterproofing´ by 2010!

The fireworks (big bang, no sparks) anticipating the result are now in full swing and Im about to be thrown out of here. Heading to Guatemala next for a few weeks then Belize and Mexico...
Bye for now
Pete

Where 24 San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua --OR-- Flies by the Billion!

2004-02-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys

After the last mail I was told that using phrases like ´too hot´ is not allowed given the present climate in the northern hemisphere, so from now on I will simply refer to the soaring ambient temperature as warm.

Since last time I have managed to escape a nearby outbreak of yellow fever and a hoard of mossies that left me with over 100 bites on one foot alone, and caught a plane to Panama. Then northeast to Coata Rica and now into Nicaragua. Nearly all of the time I have been travelling on old US school buses, some of them still painted yellow with the appropriate notices inside e.g. ´Behave as you would in the classroom.´

Panama

Best bites
- The Panama Canal - an engineering wonder when it was completed in 1914 with 3 huge locks at each end and a big lake it the middle. The whole thing is 80km long with each lock 33m wide and 305m long. Each ship going through it releases 52 million gallons of water in to the sea. I managed to get close to it on a viewing platform and it is impressive with 8 railway engines, with ropes attached to the ship, being used to guide each ship throuh the lock (to stop it hitting the sides).

- Bocas del Toro - Paradise - I knew it was because everyone said it was. These are a group of islands on the Carribean Coast. Incredible beautiful beaches deviod of people and rubbish. Some are too rough to swim off but others are protected by a reef, making them very calm. Needless to say the water is warm and crystal clear. Lazing in a hammock over the water at my accommodationis blissful, and looking through the floorboards of the room and seeing the sea is something else.

Worst bites
- My Camera breaking. It just stopped in Panama City and as it was at the end of a role of film I couldn´t get it out without ruining the film and so lost a whole roll of pictures. So as I was leaving that day I had to rush around and find another one for not too much money ... at least i got one, lets hope it is working.

- Wandering just a couple of blocks from the tourist areas in Panama City to be warned by the local not to carry on as it was dangerous - and this in broad daylight! We turned to walk back the way we came and they warmed us not to go that way either!

- In the little hostel over the water we never did figure out how the sewage worked ... but well we were right on top of the water. But the beaches were on the other side of the island, a 15 min walk away.

Costa Rica
Highlights
- Beautiful Cloud Forest in Monteverde. Many people go to Costa Rica just for the (feathered) birds and especially the Quetzal (bird of Paradise). Unfortunately, as this was a cloud forest it contains trees and clouds and so is wet and virtually impossible to see anything let along a small bird high up on a tree! And the winds in some places are so strong (wind 50mph, gusts up to 90 mph) that the forest is stunted and is called a dwarf forest.

- Humming Birds - Incredible to watch and feel them whizz around you like they are in a speeded up film. Speed, elegance and constant terratorial battles. Talking of film, I wasted tons of shots trying to get a decent picture of them in mid air, and most of them are probably just of thin air!

- Bathing in hot rivers warmed by Volcano Arenal. The river is diverted to form waterfall you can sit under and pools to laze in. Sitting under the waterfalls is like having a massage ...

Low lights
- Loads of tourists. Often on 2 week breaks, all with loads of money and so driving up the prices. The word ´tour´ in the title means US$25 added to the price for starters.

- The roads, some are OK and some are... bad. I took a bus for 26 miles (42km) and it took 2.5 hours to get there, without any abnormal stops. This is the only place I have been where the quality of the roads is measured on the Beaufort scale.

- The only really cheap thing here is bananas (since they grow them across most of the country), you can get about 75 of them for one British Pound. Now just imaginewhat that does to your diet! No best not.

Nicaragua

Choice Cuts
- Laguna de Apoyo. A wonderful old volcanic crater about half ful with a lake 7km across. Beautiful place to chill, I even got up to watch the sun rise over the crater rim - superb.

- In the huge Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in Central America) rise two volcanos close enough that their lavas joined to form an island, Ometepe. The highest of these at 1,620m (the lake is about 50m above sea level) and is a perfect volcanic cone with a very small crater, about 150m wide, at the top. Despite having had enough of trekking, it is a month since my last trek so it seemed like a reasonable idea to climb it. It was some climb - only 1 day but starting at 5.30am, 3 of us plus a guide climbed an increasingly steep slope made of rocks, mud and covered with vegetation - the path was the most tricky I have climbed. Near the top the only vegatation is huge ruhbarb-like plants covered in spikes, many of them slimy cos they were rotting, which looked like they were from an old Dr Who set. As there was no grip on the loose shale we had to grab hold of them to pull ourselves up. At the top after over 5 hours there was complete cloud cover, but we waited and eventually it clearedto reveal we were a very long way up. Inside the crater there were deposits of yellow sulpher accompanied by a nasty smell, and all the rocks surrounding the rim were really hot. Coming down was tougher than going up as it was almost impossible to stop yourself slipping. Round trip 10.5 hours - well worth the effort, but would I do it again? Not a chance!

Dog Ends
- Crossing the border from Costa Rica by a remote crossing I entered Nicaragua at San Carlos at the south east of Lake Nicaragua. It is bloody awful, dont ever go there. Firstly the place is smelly, the wooded shacks that pass as houses and hotels are falling apart, a complete dump. When both the bank and the petrol station are not at least clean then you know you are in the wrong place. Some people just hang around on the streets, but they are the really motivated ones. But worse was to come - once it got dark my room started filling up with bugs, coming in through the gaps in the cardboard walls, so I went outside to get away from them. Mistake! Wall to wall flies, crawling all over me, constantly flying into me, trying to get up my nose (mouth was firmly shut as they dont taste great). There was no one else on the streets despite the fact that it was only 7pm. Managed to make it the 100m to a restaurant which was relatively fly free. Asked the managewr there whether or was always like this and he said ´No. Only during the dry season and occasionally during the wet season!´
A couple of hours later I left the restaurant and was slightly relieved to see that there were a few less flies and other people were wandering about. When I got back to my room I found out why. Thousands of flies had died in my room and everything was covered in them - disgusting! I was so glad I had been carrying my mossie net around (for 3 months without using it). The next morning most of the rest of the flies had died and was stuff was covered once again. Out on the balcony, in the corner by my room, it was 2cm deep in dead flies from one night - sweeping up the dead flies is a daily task. I didn´t stay a second night!

- Also in San Carlos, young children and dogs were scrabbling on the floor for my leftover scraps. The larger beast usually won, but sadly that wasn´t always the children. After I finished the children asked if they could have the chickens neck which I had left - they devoured it in seconds.

And that is about what I have been up to. Next I am trying to do some surfing (on the sea) before heading up to Hondras for some diving.
Luv
Pete

Where 23 - Cartagena, Colombia --OR-- How to Find the Lost City

2004-01-27T07:21:00.000-08:00

HI there,

I´m sure that when I planned this 6-month trip i was supposed to have about 5 and a half months in Central America - now 2 and a half of the six have already gone and I am still in South America - so much for the maths. But at last, via a strange route, I have made it to the top of South America and the last port of call before heading across to Central America.

When I last wrote I had just arrived in Bogota where Sally came out to see me and we travelled together for 3 weeks through Colombia and Venezuela. We headed North East though a string of colonial towns where we spent Xmas and then into Venezuela to Merida, in the mountains for new year and then right across the country to the south east to see Angel Falls, then to Caracus (where Sally flew out) and along the coast, safely back into Colombia, to Santa Marta (to find the Lost City) and to Cartagena.

HIGH POINTS
- Bogota is full of interesting fruits, teas and powders. Some of them are very good if you have a cold, others make your nose run - and some of the tea was intesting too...
- Spent Xmas in a well preserved colononial village called Barichara in Colombia where on the wall of every single house was a crib - they do love their cribs - and every street was lined with lights, Xmas trees and (even though these people have never seen snow in their lives) snowmen - made of plastic cups! There were no other foreigners in the place, which was great, and entertainment was laid on for the locals who danced all night in the plaza, to salsa and the band who didn´t come on stage until 4am Xmas morning - and hardly anyone was drunk ! Not like England at all.
- In this village stayed in a nice small hotel but when I asked for the key to the room I was told - ´no key - its very tranquil here´... and this is Colombia. I have never been anywhere where I have had my own room but no key! Is this now the safest place on the planet? I was a bit dubious but she was right, and no, nothing was lost or disappeared.
- And the xmas beers were only 25 pence each. Not real English beer, fizzy stuff, but ice cold.
- Angel Falls (Venezuela) - The highest waterfall in the world, almost 1,000 metres of sheer drop awaits the water that comes off a flat topped mountain - only ´discovered´ in 1935 as it is so far away from ... anywhere. The water seems to turn to mist a third of the way down as it loses motivation to get to the bottom, and it almost stops. We managed to time it all the way down though and it takes about a minute (about 60kmh or 37mph) which isn´t bad going. It is huge but difficult to get into perspective when viewed from the bottom. Although it looks like hardly any water is falling, when it reconstitutes itself into a river at the bottom, it is a raging torrent!
- And now I´m on the north (Carribean) coast in the blazing heat (even though it is their winter). I´m trying to keep out of the sun as much as possible whilst all the locals are happy walking around in full length jeans - maybe they think it is cold!

The Treks
I´m not entirely sure why I/we decided to do these treks but I guess they seem like a good idea at the time.

Pico Humboldt
- In Merida we decided to do a 4 day trek/climb up the countrys 2nd highest peak, Pico Humboldt at almost 5,000m. The first day was a real slog uphill through a rainforest carrying over 20kg of equipment including crampons and ice axe. We passed a few day hikers in the rainforest - maybe we made them feel small with all the stuff we were carrying (as they jogged past us!) or maybe they just thought we were stupid, but then carrying an ice axe in a jungle is about equivalent of wearing scuba gear including tanks and fins/flippers whilst walking down Oxford Street doing xmas shopping.
- After starting at midday we only made it to the campsite, totally exhausted, 10 mins before it got dark. All of my muscles were screaming so loud that I couldn´t hear a thing.
- Overnight I left my waterbottle outside the tent and it froze (at about 3,000m).
- The 2nd day was over tricky rocks and took 8 hours, but them we had to get to bed early for day 3.
- New Years eve - Up at 3am and left at 4am trekking in the dark. By 9am we had reached the bottom of the 45 degree glacier that we had to climb - 5 mins later my calves were being pulled apart by the crampons - unfortunately there was an hour of ice climbing before a further half hour over rocks before we made it to the summit. And what a view. What an experience. There is no way I´m ever doing that again!
- I made it back to the tent totally exhausted and crawled into it at 4pm on New Years Eve and didnt come out again that night. Not much of a party then!
- Unfortunately we still had to come all the way down which took all of day 4. Sheer madness - those day trekkers were right!

Lost City (Cuidad Perdida), Colombia - Built during 700 - 1400AD by Tyrone indians as part of a trading network of towns over hundreds of kms - Population around 3,000. Discovered in 1975 by graverobbers (searching for the Indians gold).
- This trek has diminished in popularity since the kidnappings there last September (but they have all been released now so it must be OK!) - and less people doing it means it is even more worth doing. So ...
- Six days trekking through dense jungle to the middle of nowhere. Its hot, by god it is hot - and about 100% humidity - your clothes are saturated with sweat within half an hour of starting walking each day. Fortunately there is only an average of 4 hours trekking a day - in the afternoon you get to cool off in the freezing rivers and try and dry your clothes for the next day (tricky cos unless it is sunny in the afternoon, nothing dries).
- After 3 days of walking uphill and wading through rivers (fortunately only carrying about 12kg this time), a flight of narrow moss covered stone steps emerges through the vegetation by the riverbank in the middle of dense jungle. 1,200 steps (all slippery as they are covered in moss) leading up to the Lost City which is of course built on top of a mountain...
- Since there were no buildings ( they were all wooden and have decayed) I wasn´t expecting much, but it was more spectacular than I had expected - the numerous path and stairways that connect the 170 terraces (each housing between 1 and 5 houses) were amazingly intricate, almost delicate, and many of them disappeared into dense undergrowth, impossible to follow without a machette.
- And on the fourth day I had the whole place (almost) to myself - apart from my guide and a couple of local indians. Fantastic - well worth the walk. And I didn´t get kidnapped - again!

Low Points
- One night in the jungle at the Lost City I got over 100 mossie bites on one foot - and that is depite mossie net, repelent and wearing socks. The other foot only got about 70 bites.
- Xmas and new year are the time for fireworks here - so if you want to get a good nights sleep during the couple of weeks around then , forget it. Some one will be up at 4am just to set one off. And they aren´t even pretty, just VERY LOUD!
- It is a bit odd enjoying Xmas festivities surrrounded by fully armed military. OK so they still look young enough to be wondering what they will be getting for Xmas, but in a small 'peaceful' town they do look kindda out of place.
- Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela - It ever you wanted to see an example of colonial decay then this is it. Build a string of huge colonial mansions, do no maintainance for 50 years, close most of it down, and let the rooms out to backpackers. It must have been a great place once - although not quite sure when that was...
- The Orrinocco (Flow) - So evocative of a magnificent river it makes you think of more than just the Womble and Enya. But naming such a dirty and disgusting river after a womble is just a sad joke! Oh and it flows through Ciudad Bolivar. And Enya can never have been to the Orrinocco, it just (sort of) rhymed with 'flow'
- Venezuela is a strange sort of country. Its main problem seems to be that it just doesn´t work very well - a good summary was provided by a bus I went on - the door latch had failed so the door wouldn´t stay shut, but instead of mending it they employed a third man (they are always 2 - one to drive and one to collect the fares) to close the door and tie it shut each time after someone got on or off.
- Lemon flavour crisps - yes really - And you just have to try them - once - sort of odd though. If you close your eyes and imagine that you are eating pastry and not potato, they sort of taste like Lemon Merangue Pie...

Oh and met a Brazilian who went into the Tesco Metro in Bristol, England, looking for the Underground - and she asked a few people before someone told her there wasn´t one - well you just gotta laugh!
(For non UK people Tesco Metro is the name of a supermarket and Bristol doesn´t have an underground.)

Now onto Panama - and its canal - I dont think it has a lot else...

I hope those of you in the Northern Hemisphere survive the cold spell - it should be over by ... May?

Best wishes

Pete

Where 22 - Bogota, Colombia --OR-- How to keep food in Stomach on Incredible Bus Journeys

2003-12-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

You are on a bus. Not a modern bus with new innovations like suspension, but one with a lot in common with a WW1 tank. Old is too new a word. Batterd to the point where you can't imagine it ever being new.
Cold rain is pelting down outside. You are sitting next to the door, or you would be if there was a door, but there is merely a gap in the side of the bus through which rain is now pouring. Your trousers are soaked, and you wished you had put on boots this morning instead of open sandals as your feet are now freezing, but it was sweltering on the way to the bus station- now you are in the mountains.
Next to you there is a young girl, with a baby, and all around stand local people (there are no other foreigners on the bus - they are in short supply here) with unlikely amounts of luggage - at least you have a seat. The road is a dirt track consisting of a series of potholes sewn together by ridges, grooves and cracks.
Your body is being shaken into numbness and your breakfast of eggs and rice (again!), despite only being given a one way ticket, is climbing from your stomach to get a look out of the window at the vistas that would be before you if you weren´t encased in cloud, its crampons seemingly digging in your throat as it scales its way up. At least an hour of the journey has already passed and there is only a further five to go.
The driver is equipped (as they all are) with an extra large bladder to avoid him having to stop; the comfort of the passengers is hardly his concern. He swerves the bus round each bend challenging the single track to grip the sliding hunk of junk and keep it on this most single of tracks.
Suddenly the rain stops and you are transported to a magical world of deep gorges carved from high mountains by what from this height look like no more than tiny streams. As the sun beats down it reveals the texture of the mountains - slashed with the scars of tiny rivers. Some peaks are covered in trees, other bare apart from a covering of velvet in stunning shades of green. It´s wonderful, more than you could have imagined.
A couple of hours later, long after my breakfast had returned to base camp, the almost endless wonderment is interupted by a schreeching halt, this time not a head on encounter with a bus or truck going the opposite way, but a god given stop for a piss ... and food. All it is wise to consume is a thin soup, which after finding unexpectedly sweet, I discover is made from sugar cane and water - and it is accompanied by a large slab of semi-soft cheese which you are supposed to dip in it.
As soon as the bus drivers spoon hits an empty bowl we are chasing him back to the bus lest we be permanently separated from our luggage, and soon pounding the road again, sitting like chickens on a spit in the roasting sunshine.
Not long after we are confronted a roadblock manned by teenagers bristling with assault rifles, and grenades attached to their tunics. Thankfully it is an army checkpoint. . We debus and all the men are frisked all over, including the groin (fully clothed I should mention, this is not a ´tackle out´ occasion) and baggage searched.
All of this is nothing out of the ordinary. This is Colombia.

Is it dangerous here? Well nowhere near as bad as the press and government advice would have you believe. Sure, there is always the chance of being mugged or even kidnapped, but the place is swarming with military and police, and you take all the precautions you can. And anyway if you had come all this way, and found out that it was really perfectly safe, then you would be really pissed off!

Since the beginning of December when I left Galapagos Islands I have spent a week in Banos in Ecuador trying to learn more Spanish, and then following a brief stop to visit a indiginous market, headed north tothe Colombian border. I crossed after dark (well I had to do something to make it more interesting) and have wound my way up to Bogota, all by bus - there are no trains here.

High points
- Not been mugged yet.
- Not been robbed yet.
- Not been kidnapped yet.
- Not been shot yet.
I reserve the right to retract any, or all, of these foolish statements, at a later date.
- The scenery so far (inn the south west of Colombia) has been breathtaking - and I have spent many hours on buses in the past week and a half, plus four days in the mountains. The rock here is soft and hence there are very deep and steep gorges, surrounding jagged peaks. The roads are usually carved into the rock along the sides of the gorges providing excellent views.
- San Augustin - Remains of a lost culture up to 5,500 years old. There are hundereds of statues (some like totem poles, others like a childs drawing), from half metre to 4 mertres high carved out of stone and to guard the graves of the dead and to worship them. All statues were buried underground to save them when the Incas conquered the civilisation probably in about 1450 AD. Powerful symbols of an advanced civilisation with some evidence (although in my mind not conclusive, but then I am 'septic') that they had links with Egypt and India.
- Tierradentro - A similar but different civilisation carved out underground tombs in solid rock to store the remains of the most important people. They are up to 3m high, and 5m radius (semicircular in area) with the entrance about 6m deep accessed by steps carved down into the rock.
- The indiginous market in Sasquisili, Ecuador. I arrived early and was the only non-indiginous person around for a while. To my delight they sold nothing I could buy, apart from traditional pastries and fruit. I could have bought 30 kg of carrots for US$5 (3 British pounds), or a llama, but I didn´t enter negotiations on that one. All the people were wearing their usual dress, the women in bowler hats and colourful skirts and socks. The men struggle (ie dont do) with the traditional dress although some manage to wear a hat.
- As there is a shortage of guerillas to fight here in Colombia (they have retreated to the mountains) the main function of the police (apart from standing around trying to look threatening) is to maintain a large crib right outside the police station and stick as many figures on it as possible (almost everyone is catholic here). The records so far for plastic sheep in a crib outside a police station, is 70, plus all the attendent, shepherds, kings, donkeys etc.
- The lack of foreigners in Colombia - usually this is a good thing, but it does have drawbacks like being stared at by the locals and if a group is required to hire a jeep for the day then you either have to wait a few days to get enough people or miss out.

Low Points
- Homework! Never thought I would ever do it again, but it crops up a lot when learning spanish. Four hours of brain numbing conversation and learning about the structure, followed by Homework! in the afternoon.
- The Xmas decorations are exactly the same as at home. Snowflakakes, snowmen, icicles etc... And this is the equator! I came all this way to get away from that.
- Bus rides. Up to 11 hours a day on some bouncy roads does not endear buses to me. Loads more to come though - maybe the roads will be better if I dont go to such remote places. Oddly enough it is always the locals that throw up. This may be gods way of telling them to build better roads!
- Watching Colombian football on TV. It is constantly being interupted by adverts ( about 10secs every minute) where the bottom third of the screen is taken over by an advert and the commentry is cut to allow the advertisers to annoy you. This is random so if a goal is being scored at that moment - tough. I haven´t watched much football here.....

Next it if off to Venezula ... after Xmas.

Feliz Navidad y neuve ano (Happy Xmas and New year) from Bogota.

Luv
Pete

Where 21 - Galapagos Islands, Ecuador --OR-- Dancing with Sealions

2003-12-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

HI there,

It doesn´t seem 5 mins since I left the cold and rain of England for the slightly warmer climes of the equator, but time is moving on, unfortunately faster than I am and the Xmas trees with flashing lights are taking over the shops and houses here making me think it is time to think about where I will be for Xmas and new year - Colombia or Venezula seem to be the very likely answers right now, but who knows.

Since leaving on 11 Nov I spent as little time as possible in Quito (Ecuador) and flew out to Galapagos where I have spent a couple of weeks (several days too long - see later) but then they are a unique ecosystem, infact a whole string of unique ecosystems as each island has it´s own.

The Best Bits
- The whole of the Galapagos is wonderful, its animals, some unique others not, are more friendly than an especially cuddly cat! In particular...
- Dancing with sealions - on the beach they are approachable (within a metre) but most of the time just lie there sunbathing. In the water they are not only agile, fast and curious they actually play games with you. Imagine a torpedo whizzing past, by the time you realise what it was, it´s gone. But it returns, this 1.5m sealion, effortlesly accelerating through the water straight for your mask and veering away when only a metre from your nose, then going eyeball to eyeball with its enormous drugged out bulging eyes, and having it swim round you, do backflips in perfect circles in front of your nose, bubbles pouring from its mouth, squarking 'can´t you do this' before it picks stones from the bottom in it's mouth and tries to give them to you. After a while you realise that it is trying to teach you tricks - just a bit of role reversal, after all we clumsy people can teach them nothing about agility in water. After 20 mins or so with the same animal you begin to understand it, know what to expect next. Then it hangs upside down in the water grinning at you - too close to take a picture as it will be out of focus - somehow I feel it knows that - Just Playing it is. It made my day, I hope I added something to its.
- Blue footed boobies - And yes there are loads of t-shirts on sale with a piture of 2 blue feet and the line ´I love Boobies´ underneath. They really are birds with blue feet and so entertaining they are named after the spanish word for clown ´Bobo´. They look pretty stupid and act even stupidier e.g. showing its blue feet is the way of attracting a mate, whether it washes them first I dont know. They are the best fishers though, zipping vertically into the water with swept back wings at incredible speed and gobbling its catch before surfacing else the Frigate birds (with huge red, heart shaped inflated chests will nick its fish).
- Pelicans - The most clumsy animals I have ever seen. They crash in to the sea with a large element of random precision and rely on scooping out a huge slice of water with their expanding pouches filtering it for small fish. In the air they are flying dinosaurs, and on land waddle awkwardly over each other and anything that gets in their way, usually resulting in them falling over each other or into a hole, constantly using their unweildy wings as surrogate arms to stop themselves or pull themselves up. They even steal the fisheads from the fishermen, store them in their pouches and sit their quite contentedly until they are alone, then having to spit out the fish only to realise it is too big for them to eat. Next to them stands the super efficient heron, bewildered by their antics and losing out to the numbers and brute force of its clumsy competitors.
- Penguins - yes they have penguins on the equator - watching them fly through the water chasing shoals of fish is remarkable. Where their power comes from is not clear, but they are elegant and ..... and they are penguins ... what more do you need!?
- Tortoises of the Giant kind - 1.5m long and living to over 150 years old - the oldest know one was 152 when it died in an accident, but no-one knows how old the current ones are. The are prehistoric, stretching their wrinkled necks out to reveal toothless grins, they rip the grass out by its roots and clamber with painful awkwardness over to a new patch of grass. Each one has a different personality, retracting with a hydraulic hiss, in its mountainous shell or posing elegantly for photos, they are magnificent animals - though why anyone thought it necessary to invent them is difficult to understand...
- Hanging out with the white tipped reef sharks about 10m down whilst scuba diving in the harsh and unpredictable currents whilst scuba diving. More evidence of our clumsiness as we desperatly cling onto the rocks to avaid being swept away, they just hang in the same spot hardly making any movement. They swim within a couple of metres and look curiously at me with their tiny squinty eye. I wonder what it was thinking? I know what I was thinking ... that´s probably close enough... And then a 4m hammerhead shark cruises by with eyes sticking out of its hammer - strange them sharks.
- Getting bored yet, well there was hanging out with the turtles as they fed on the weed on the rocks just below the surface, calmly being swept back and forth in the swell; The yellow, 2m long land iguanas, black marine iguanas unique to here - every few minutes they spit out salt to keep their bodies pH balanced - they are dragons with wry smiles, wrikled skin and spikes along the back and head - punk rock started here!

Enough Enough - we want to hear some bad bits! I hear you, so here they are:
- Missing Englands triumph in the world cup - it wasn´t on tv in Galapagos - England World Champions! (rugby that is, and for all you who dont know the game - its like american footbal witout the padding or the time outs - and more than one team competes in the world champships). And to all those Aussies reading this ...Unluckly mates HaHaHaHaHaHa....etc.
- Rice, rice bloody rice. Asia is the home of rice and South America the home of the potato.... so why do they serve rice with everything? Potato comes with rice, spaghetti comes with rice, and if you are nieve enough to just ask for rice you get a double helping. Rice twice a day really is too much of a (cheap but) indifferent thing.
-The Galapagos cost a fortune, over US$1,000 to: fly there from Ecuador, national park entry, 8 day boat trip, so l will have to survive on the delicious rice they serve here from now on!
- Taking the round trip to the airport twice and failing to get on a plane (7 hours each time inc the 4 hours waiting at the airport). Third time I was lucky.
- The equator at sea level. It's got to be really hot right. No. Its cloudy nearly all the time and there is a slight chill in the evening. I mean it´s not like an english chill, but this is the equator - I had to wear long trousers in the evening, how ridiculous is that ... But the water must be warm? Sometimes - but then sometimes the cold Humboldt current from Antartica suddenly rises to the surface and it is like having an ice cold shower! BBBBrrrrrrr.....
- In a protected area of the Darwin Research station there is Lonesome George - a giant tortoise just hanging out. He is lonesome because he is the last of a species. They very last tortoise from a particular island, all the rest have been killed by man. They dont know how old he is, but he wont mate with similar species of tortoise from other islands at the moment, maybe he will in 50 or 100 years time, who knows. Imagine being the very last of a species .. now that´s tough.

Heading off to learn a bit more spanish in Banos and then into Colombia - maybe then it will get mote interesting - for you at least!

Bye for now
LuvPete

Where 20 - Quito, Ecuador --OR-- Does it Really Rain in Rainforests?

2002-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys, For maybe the last time......

Since Cusco, Peru it has been none stop overnight bus journeys (mainly uncomfortable). First went to Arequipa home to the 2 deepest canyons in the world, then up the Peruvian coast to Nasca, Lima and Trujillo and then into Ecuador to Guayaquil, Banos, into the jungle in the NE of the country and then to Quito, the capital, virtually on the Equator and the end of this six month trip.

Highs First for a change....

- The Nasca lines are a massive mess of lines drawn in the desert containing huge pictures of animals and other shapes. The lines were drawn about 1,500 years ago and are only visible from the air so we had to take a flight over them. The largest animal is a bird 285m long although some of the smaller ones (around 50m long) are better drawings. Why they were drawn is still a matter of great debate ranging from a map of where to find water, a map of the stars, solstice lines to pictures to appease the gods. How they did it is another matter. The lines themselves were made simply by removing dark stones to reveal the lighter desert stone beneath. How they achieved the accuracy of patterns is not so easy to explain. Some people claim they must have been able to see them from the air by using a primative hot air balloon, or perhaps they were geometrically advanced and had inveted a method of enlarging small pictures. Unfortunately even if they were advanced they (like all other Andean tribes prior to arrival of the Spanish in 1532) had no system of writing and so we know little about them.

- In Trujillo, Chan Chan is the largest mud city in the world and the largest pre Spanish city in the Americas was built around 1300AD and housed 55,000 people. They simply moulded mud into brick shapes without baking them and built a city. The advantage they had was that it can go for decades without raining here although even in those days the odd El Nino did a lot of damage. There are still many walls left although the water damage is obvious. Amazing that something so basic could last so long and that a civilisation advanced and organised enough to organise 55,000 people did not want (or maybe didnt need) to use more advanced methods of building.

- The 5 day trip into Ecuadors rainforest was a great experience - well at least it was when it wasnt raining.
Two things should ye know about the rainforest before ye enter. Firstly, it is a FOREST.
Secondly, it RAINS.
This may seem rather obvious but I have met people on trips into Rainforest who express surprise that it rains. That is rather like going to London and being surprised that the River Thames is a river! I know there are exceptions - like Panama hats being made in Ecuador and the Hundred Years war lasting 126 years , BUT some things are obvious and rain in a Rainforest
is surely one of them.

When it wasnt raining we say loadsa monkeys, birds, butterflys and a few mammals. We slept in mossie nets on a covered wooden platform in the middle of nowhere - there is nothing like going to sleep and waking up to the sounds of the jungle. No electrity or showers but we had candles and a river to swim in and it was just perfect. Perfect except for the mossies that is, they took a liking to my feet for some reason and my insteps did a fair impression of a relief map of the Andes.

A few LOWS

- Lima in Peru. A large costal city not far from the Equator. Rio is further from the equator and has fantastic water and beaches so I was hoping for something similar here. But.... to start with the sky was the most dowdy shade of grey imaginable as if it was just off to a particularly large
and important funeral. The sea was pretty much the same colour, as was the beach (just pebbles) and not only was it cold but there was a cold wind blowing. Just to top it off there was a small pier and a single mad local swimming. Yes I was actually in Brighton on a summer weekend ....... and the water temperature ... I didnt get close enough to find out !

- Rice, Rice, Rice. Dry, Dry, Dry. At every meal in this part of the world they serve rice .... with everything! Even ordering a portion of chips guarantees an accompanying mountain of rice sufficient to keep a large Asian family for a week. Whoever first introduced it here didnt actually tell the locals how to serve it properly ..... Dry chicken, dry chips and dry rice.
Of course hardly anyone actually eats the rice ... even the locals who you would of thought must be used to it by now are adept at pushing it towards the edge of the plate as if saving it for last .. and then just as they are about to start the arduous and painful process of consumption, they declare they are already full.

- Endless overnight bus journeys. Compared to most of SAm Peru does not look that big .... but it is enormous and many of the roads are not the best, and neither are the buses. Plus the people here are fairly short and so they design buses without legroom. Apart from that its great - what I mean is - they are cheap !

The Rest

- The Equator - The thing itself is hardly a highlight - I mean it is just a line (about 6cm wide in this case) and its yellow - Amazing that on all maps its always black but in reality its yellow ! How did the cartographers get that wrong?
But getting there (and having the usual crap picture taken) means the end of this journey. In the past 20 months I have been to 31 countries including almost every meaningful country in the southern hemisphere, across 6 continents (Antartica will have to wait for next time or when I have some money). I have spent far too long on buses but even though I never got travel sick , maybe now I am sick of travelling and want to sit in the same place for more than a couple of days.

Of course the trip would not be complete without a few Awards so here are a few random samples ........

Hottest place - Yangon and Bangkok just before the monsoons. Nobody did anything cos it was very hot and 100% humidity.

Coldest Place - My parents house near London

Most expensive place - London

Cheapest Place - Sumatra, Indonesia (For what a pint of beer costs in London you could live here for a day including accomodation, decent food and a beer !)

Cheapest Beer - Hanoi, Vietnam (Beer Hoi on the street cost 10 US cents (7p) a glass and it was pretty good. We still haggled over the price though!!!!)

Worst Food - Lao and Easter Island

Best Food - Argentina

Highest (Legal) Adrenalin sport - Skydiving, NZ

Highest (Legal) Adrenalin sport that I would actually do again - White water rafting down the Zambezi, Zimbabwe.

Best Man made wonder - Cities and temples at Angkor, Cambodia (Absolutely stunning)

Best Natural wonder - View of Southen Ice Field and glaciers, Torres del Paine, Chile
Although notable runners up include
- Mount Bromo at Sunrise, Java, Indonesia
- Iguassu Falls, Argentina/Brasil
- Moreno Glacier, Argentina

Favorite country - Myanmar (Burma)

Most played record worldwide - YMCA by Village People. That just proves it is a really sad world we live in!

I will be back in England on 19 July and will be staying at my parents as I cant afford to get my house back until I have a job ......

Several people have asked me what I intend to do when I get back - as if after 20 months I havent thought about it. I know exactly what I will do..... I will sit on my sofa at my parents house and think What the hell am I going to do now!

Thanks to all the people I have travelled with for making this such a great experience - if youre still on my email list then it cant have been that bad !

See you soon
Love
Pete

The End (?)

Where 19 - Cusco, Peru --OR-- Inca Trail and the Most Dangerous Road in the World

2002-06-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hi Peeps,

Last time I was in the middle of Bolivia in Santa Cruz. From there I got a bus to the border with Brazil and crossed over to see the Pantanal (large wet area!). Then to La Paz (the highest capital city in the world at 3,600m), followed by Corioco, Lake Titicaca, then into Peru to Puno and then Cusco, the capital of the old Inca Empire and the start of the Inca trail to Machu Piccu.

The lows first because I´m sure that you find them more entertaining !

Remember that bus to Santa Cruz, Bolivia which arrived 74 huors late - well things didnt get much better after that. After only 1 night in a normal bed it was back to the bus for a 19 hour journey to the Brazilian border - unfortunately the bus was pre war (pre any war you would care to mention) and it was not only late leaving it broke down within half an hour and we
waited 1.5 hours for them to fix it. The ´road´ if that be the correct name was sometimes rubble, sometimes sand and at other times just plain bad. It didn´t help that I was feeling really ill with Parasitic diahorrea (although I didnt know what it was for another week+). To say it was uncomfortable was an understatement and with breakdowns punctures etc it arrived 11 hours
late (total 30 hours). Actually it never arrived at the destination - Just to cap it all the road was blockaded (by taxi drivers it seems ) a few miles short of the destination - so we had to .... take a taxi !!! the rest of the way at our own expense ! Cos we got there so late the border was closed and we had to stay in Bolivia another night.

- After that I had to traverse the whole length of the country agan but decided there was no way I was going to go by bus and flew to La Paz for US$150 - and who said Bolivia was a cheap country?

- My travelling schedule being completely screwed up by the strikes and of course the football! What a silly time to be travelling without much time......

- Having to get up at stupid times to go and watch the football. In the early stages in Bolivia it ran from 2.30am to 9.30am and later on in Peru, 1.30am to 8.30am. I have got used to hauling myself out of bed at ridiculous times of the night after 2 or 3 hours sleep and immediately
immersing myself in a beer. I do not necessarily think this is a habit I will keep up now the footy is over ! (I did miss a few matches by oversleeping - but I missed more by not being able find a TV showing it in the towns I was staying in - caught all the biggies though!)

The floating islands in Puno, Peru - The Uros people have lived on island made of reeds for over 1,000 years. They still live their today and still practice their traditional skills of fishing, bird catching and maintaining the islands so they dont sink. However most of the time they sell stuff to the tourists who turn up to see them. Proabbly the most touristy place I have been anywhere. They now have solar panels, TVs etc and stay there cos (according to the tour guide) they have an easy life. Tourism has changed so much about their way of life - but hopefully for the better. Although I have my doubts. These people are now just a tourist attraction ...... but
as I was told by another traveller ..... ´there is a reason for that !´

And just a few highs

- The Pantanal in Brazil. If I ignore the angony of the journey and the wasted week I spent getting there (from Sucre it took almost exactly 7 days) and the expense of the flight back to La Paz, then I can be positive about the experience. I spent 4 night in a hammock (surprisingly comfortable) and the days spotting alligators (over 2m long), capybarras (the worlds largest
rodent - at 80cm long they looked like extremely large guinea pigs), deer, howler monkeys, a large anteater and birds (Macaws/parrots, herons, black vultures, toucans (yes the ones from the old Guinness ads), and the 1.5m wingspan Jabiru stork).
Also went pirhana fishing (although I was slightly hesitant about wading into the water to fish) and caught two, each 30 cm long. Ate them for lunch - very tasty but a lot of bones.

The most dangerous road in the world! - About 1 truck every 2 weeks falls off this narrow ledge carved into the mountain down a 300m+ vertical drop.
So the best thing is to go down it by bike! OK maybe not the best idea ever but its nearly all downhill - imagine going 63km and dropping 3,500m in height at speeds of up to of 60kph. Just try and keep an eye out for trucks coming the other way as there is no room to pass them on most of the road.

The prison in La Paz. This may be one of the worlds oddest tourism attractions but guided tours (by a New Yorker imprisoned for drug smuggling) are available. The prison is a whole series of little communities where prisoners have to buy or rent their own cells (top penthouse cost $15,000 to buy). Whether they get to live in a 5* part, a 3* part or a no star part entirely depends on how much money they have. To occupy themselves and to earn money there are hundreds of businesses inside from shoe shine, fresh veg stalls to restaurants - for prisoners who do not want to eat the prison food with possible sedatives etc in it. And of course the 3 things that keep a prison running - drugs, sex and alcohol are all available. You can have a woman stay over for $4 a night (note : this does not include the cost of the woman) so many prisoners have their girlfriends/wives stay over. And one more oddity - once sentanced the prisoners must pay a $4 entrance fee to the prison - if they can´t they have to work for 30 days in the kitchens (not a nice place).

England v Argentina - Whilst it must have been fantastic to watch it in London it was altogether a different experience getting up at 2.15am and spending all night watching the football in a La Paz bar. I knew I was in SAmerica but I didn´t expect everyone in the bar to be supporting Argentina (I mean how many people in England wanted Germany to win the final just because they are European !?). But there I was, 7.30am in the morning the bar was full of 300 pro Argentine supporters and 3 England fans. I´m pleased to say I made more noise than the 300 put together! - and only got a few dirty looks - and we won!!
Five minutes after the finish I was out on the La Paz streets where it was if nothing had happened. Did we really win or had I been dreaming .......

Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca - the Incas believe that this is where the sun was born. There is a rock at one end of the island with a orange patch where it was actually born - and it has a lovely big smile! How nice is that!

The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu (MP) - There is actually a stone trail (mainly stairs) that the Incas built for the several hundred people a day who undertake the 4 day trial - now that is far sighted eco-tourism! OK so maybe they actually built it for important Incas to undertake pilgrimages to MP - either way it is still there today as are many of the Inca built earthquake proof buildings despite a huge number of earthquakes in the area (all the Spanish colonial stuff regularly falls down). Actually the Incas are hardly an ancient civilisation - they existed for a few hundred years but are only really important from 1430 (when they started to expand their
empire) to 1532 when the Spanish arrived. MP was built from 1450 to 1532 when building of the incomplete structure was stopped in favour of fighting the Spanish (in a few years the Spanish won but it is thought never found MP).
It actually wasn´t too difficult to do the trail although we had to climb to 4,200m above sea level at one point - it really is a case of the top seeming further away after every step due to the altitude. The worst part was actually having to get up at 2.45am on the final morning to trek the 3 hours mainly on the dark to see the sun rise on MP. Worth getting up for though. MP itself is not the most wonderful collection of buildings however -some (badly restored) nice close fitting Inca stonework of course - but it is the very spectacular setting amongst near vertical peaks and deep valleys and the views from above which make it easily worthwhile.

Anyway off to see the Nasca Lines, Lima and then into Ecuador for a few days in the Galapagos (if I can afford it) before heading home in just a few weeks.........

Love
Pete

Where 18 Santa Cruz, Bolivia - What makes a Bus 74 hours Late

2002-05-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Hi Peeps,

I wasnt going to write to you so soon but so much stuff has 'appenened since I last wrote (and the email here is very cheap - only $0.5 (35pence) an hour)........

From Salta in Argentina we decided to hitch over Chile across the Andes (see later) to San Pedro de Attacama from where I did a 3 day tour by 4wd through the mostly deserted but spectacular area of SW Bolivia arriving in Uyuni and then moving on by bus to Potosi, Sucre and now Santa Cruz.

First of all I must tell you (and remind myself) that despite what I am about to write, Bolivia is a massively interesting country with loads of natural wonders and coming from Brasil, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, represents a huge cultural high. It really is a 3rd world country
for the most part and that implies poverty and unpredictability - and so getting massively pissed off is just the real cost of travel.

Lows
- A 16 hour coach journey from Sucre to Santa Cruz in a reasonable coach along mainly dirt roads doesnt sound too much of a challenge - especially if you can sleep through most of it. We left Monday at 5pm and were due to arrive in SC at 9am Tuesday. However I woke up at 6am Tuesday to find that we were in a traffic jam (unusual in the middle of nowhere). Once it got
light I walked to the front of the queue to find out what the problem was only to find a whole load of locals (mainly of native indian descent) with big sticks, grinning through their remaining teeth at a bridge piled with cut down trees. It was a protest by the locals against something which we later found out was energy prices and infrastructure (I think). So we retired to the local village and had stale rolls and minging cheese breakfast waiting for a solution or the police or army to arrive to sort the situation out and reopen the road. We heard loads of rumours and times when the road would be open again but no-one actually knew anything. We played
football with the locals. Then we had lunch plus more rumours. Then Dinner with beer and rumours. We resigned ourselves to sleeping in the coach a 2nd night with rumours thrown in. Breakfast - bread and cheese with rumours and hope. More hope with lunch (all lunches and dinners consisted of a small amount of chicken with a potato and loads of dry rice). Resignation with Dinner and rumours with beer as we settled in for a 3rd night in the coach.
Woke up to distinct rumours of hope (or do I mean hopeless rumours) of an end and had lunch with heightened rumours that the road would be open at 2pm. We went back to the front line to face a huge number (500 plus) demonstators with sticks, dynamite and a couple of guns (although I'm not sure they had any ammo) and witnessed a few clashes with the truck drivers as they advanced at 3pm. Hope faded as it always did and as if to add credence to the bonfires (to keep warm) a few fireworks (sticks of dynamite) were let off. The coach driver would not go back to the village as he didnt have enough fuel and so we tried to find some dinner amongst the people on the roadside. Somewhat embarressingly now (although joyfully at the time) the only place we could find with any food was a women standing next to the soup kitchen (which had run out of food) with stale bread and some onion and tomato cut up to put inside it. We were reduced to eating stale free handouts from the locals not because we had no money but because there was simply no other food. We settled in for our fourth night. I hope you are getting bored and thinking that you have better things to do at this point cos than you will know something of how we felt (there were a few gringos (foreigners) on the bus so at least I wasnt alone). Then suddenly just after midnight we were off and running - the bridge (one of the smallest I have ever seen) had been cleared and we were soon racing the other buses down the road. I next woke at 4am to find us going round another roadblock and then stopping. At 6.30am everyone was getting off in the semi darkness and starting to walk. We followed without knowing what wass happening and walked a short distance then were made to pass through various blockades in single file. Then herded like cattle into trucks with all our luggage and driven for about 10 mins to another roadblock where we got out. Then to complete our refugee status we started walking down the road. Ive never felt like a refugee before but this was it. Hundreds of people , mainly locals, with all their luggage walking down a road (through beautiful scenery it must be said but it was hardly noticed), not knowing where we were going other than assuming we were being shoved in the direction of Santa Cruz (there are no other roads in this part of the world so it is difficult to get lost). We all walked for about 2 hours and eventually got beyond all the roadblocks and grabbed a taxi for the 5 of us which took us to the next village where we got a bus to Santa Cruz. We arrived on the 5th day of our journey, 74 hours (over 3 days) late. That was Friday morning and the bad news is because I am so short of time I have to risk getting stuck again by getting on a bus for (HOPEFULLY ONLY)19 hours on Saturday night - to Brazil.

The really bad news is that I have to come all the way back again a few days later - I hope The Pantanal (Brazilian wetlands) is worth it!

- Crossing the Andes from Argentina into Chile was not as simple as it first appeared either. As there were no buses for a few days we (an american girl and I) decided to hitch. This involved taking two buses to start with for about 4 hours and then standing by the side of the road
waiting for traffic going our way - unfortunately there was none. So we then got on another 3 hour local bus to a small village 3,500m up in the Andes where we had to spend the night. There was only one place to stay and when we went into the local ´restaurant´ we were told they had no food whatsoever - luckily there was another one down the road. In the morning we got up early and asked round all the trucks waiting to goo across the border if we could have a lift. However oddly enough their ´company policy´ said that they could only take women and not men ...... and so no one would oblige in taking both of us despite them having plenty of room. We had just about given up hope and were about to catch the local bus back down the mountain when after 4.5 hours a guy with a large truck with ´Toxico´ and ´Corrosivo´ on it (I wonder what they meant) said he would take us although because it was a dangerous load he had to go slow and it would take us 9 hours. So 9 hours later after going up to 5,000m we made it to Chile. That was the first time, and the last time, I will be hitching in SAm.

-

Must be time for some HIGHS

- The landscape around South Western Bolivia was astounding. Huge coloured lakes, white, green and red and I don´t mean slightly tinted either, with chalk, arsenic and algae in respectively, two of them had flamingos in despite the fact that the water is nearly freezing due to the high altitude (we are in the tropics here). The boiling mud field at 5,000m was a bit spectacular especially as it was snowing when we were there - yes in the tropics....... and I thought I had left all that stuff behind in Patagonia....

- The local villages, remote (apart from 4wd tours!) were really interesting. The locals depended almost entirely on llama and sheep farming and hence the village was awash with llamas wandering around looking down their noses at us - they do tend to look the most pretentious of animals - but kindda cute at the same time. The local women are very short and wide
around the hips they seem to go from being girls of 10 years old to women with 2 kids wrapped around them in a single step. The older women wear traditional blankets, brightly coloured skirts and of course bowler hats!
The men just wear ´western´ clothing.

- Not all Bolivia is 3rd world. I went to a nightclub in Santa Cruz (to celebrate not spending another night on the bus) and found the most trendy spot I have seen for a long time. Mime artists, stilt dancers and a whole row of huge beds (although people only danced on them). And the prices ....
I could have been in London!!

High or Low?

- I went to Potosi which claims to be the highest town in the world at over 4,000m. The town is full of superb colonial architecture as it was once the largest and richest place in South America due to the silver mine there. The mine in just a single mountain which overlooks the town with a total of 250km of tunnels in it and it is still mined today. We went up to the mine and found that the conditions were appalling. Imagine an English mine a couple of hundred year ago - really cramped tunnels we had to crouch to walk along, scramble under the dubious looking wooden beam supports and crawl up and down levels through tiny holes. With the only light coming from our traditional flame lamps (the are no gases to ignite down there) we could see asbestos flaking out of the walls (most miners live short lives due to lung problems and they wear no masks of any kind) as well as the occasional silver seam. The men worked in the most cramped spaces ´drilling´ holes 60cm deep in hard rock (takes 2-3 hours) with a hammer and chisel so they could dynamite the next 50kg of rock. All day they chew coca leaves (legal here) from which cocaine is derived, to stave off hunger and pain.
Supposedly no-one under 14 years old is allowed to work in the mine but no one really seemed interested in enforcing it.

We bought the miners coca leaves , 96 degree spirit and dynamite at the local market plus some dynamite for ourselves just so we could have an explosion. Once the fuse was lit (we were 70m away) we all lined up with cameras to capture the moment ....we waited as the fuse burned .... waited and waited ..... BOOOM we all jumped about 15cms in the air and none of us
got a shot. A few seconds late an Israeli girl staggered over and claimed we were trying to blow her up!!!

We were ´lucky´ enough to be ther on one of 3 days a year when the sacrafice llamas to bring them good luck (very supersdtitious lot these miners). First they stuff coca leaves downs its mouth then a cup of 96 degree spirit, then hold it down (it is still alive) and with what looked lke a vegatable knife slit its throat half way through. Blood spurted everywhere despite their best attempts to catch it in a bowl so they could splash all the mine entrances and machinery with it. Eventually it stoppped moving and then with 15 minutes they had skinned and gutted it and were ready to BBQ it. We had to leave before the feast unfortunately.

Anyway if you made it to here by reading it all - well done. If you just skipped to the last paragraph as usual then go back to the beginning !

Hopefully more good news next time................

Love
Pete

Where 17 Salta, Argentina --OR-- How to 'Walk' with a Hole in My Knee

2002-05-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Not quite such a cold, snowy and spectacular month but ... er ....
interesting nevertheless (is that really one word)...

Zigzagging my way between Chile and Argentina. From Puerto Natales in South
Chile I took a 4 night boat trip north to Puerto Montt, then down to Chiloe
a poor but traditional island on the west coast, back across into Argentina
to Bariloche (the most trendy ski resort type place that you can imagine),
San Martin de los Andes which is even more trendy than the place you just
imagined (probably cos it has a longer name), back into Chile to Pucon, a
town with a huge snowed capped volcano and nothing else. Northwards via
Santiago to Mendoza (yes back into Argentina) where they make wine and
therefore they have sunshine Hurrah!! About time too. Northwards again to
Cordoba and Salta in the north West of Argentina.

It´s difficult to imagine that the villages in these areas are in the same country as the major
European style towns. Some of the villages are third world, the houses made
of mud and the people native indians. Here as in most places the whiter the
skin the greater the affluence.

Just for a change the downers (Lows) first ........

- On top of a very snowy mountain in Barriloche admiring the incredible
views I trod on a virgin piece of snow (there were a lot of them about) but
I didnt expect from such a piece of snow that it was just a thin cover over
a huge hole ! My leg was strangely drawn right into this orrifice which
wouldn´t have been a disaster except that in the course of it´s penetration
my knee met a piece of sharp rock - it stopped suddenly, and hurt!
For the first time in my life I could see inside my knee through a hole I could have fitted my little finger into (although I didn´t actually try ´cos rolling around in the snow uttering
expletives, and seeing the remainder of my trip flash before my eyes, seemed
far more appropriate behaviour at this point). After a half hour ´walk´
through sometimes deep snow to the chairlift I tried to keep my leg as
straight as possible as each time I bent it my newly acquired aerosol in the
knee sprayed my boot and the snow bright red. Eventually I got back to
civilisation and to a hospital emergency room where I got stiched up (for
US$ 4 - a bargain). Now 3 weeks later I can at least walk properly again !

- Economic Crisis - Fortunately not mine, but the whole of Argentina´s.
Things don´t get any better for the locals. At end April all the banks, ATMs and
foreign exchange places were closed for a week to stop the withdrawls (cos no-one here trusts the banks anymore)! It worked. Luckily I had US$ cash so I changed money with the locals on the street. I heard about some riots in Buenos Aires but I am a long way from there at the moment. When I arrived in Argentina 2 months ago I was getting 2 pesos to the dollar, now I am getting well over 3 so you can imagine how cheap everything is to us foreign
folk (in December it was 1 pesos = 1 dollar).
Put it this way : Argentina. Probably the only place in the world where you can enjoy first
world quality at third world prices ! That´s why I´m still here (and it´s
an amazing place).

- Pucon, the place with the great volcano. Couldn´t climb it cos I hurt my
knee. Bugger.

Time for some High bits

- Bariloche only had 2 types of shops. Chocolate shops and ice cream shops.
Most shops sold Chocolate flavoured ice cream, but I didn´t find anywhere
that sold ice cream flavoured chocolate, and it was nearly all excellent.
And, thanks to the exchange rate it was all really cheap. We stayed there a
while ! - well I had hurt my knee and all that ....

- The 4 night boat trip. Great scenery (just the usual snow capped peaks
and glaciers) although it was cloudy most of the time. At night the sea
glowed an incredible bright green due to phospheresence (a bio-chemical
reaction ....... algae ........ or something like that).

- The wine! Did I mention the wine yet! Chilean wine rates far better than
Argentinian, amongst the cheap US$1 per litre stuff I mean - I´m a bit of an
expert on that now (well it´s cheaper than the beer litre for litre).

- Stayed at a top hotel, one of the ´Leading Hotels of the World Group´.
Well when I say ´stayed there´ it was more like sneaking in and enjoying
their facilities for an afternoon, drinking our 20 pence a litre supermarket
wine on their sunbeds.

- The food in Mendoza - Imagine a top class ´All you can eat´ with loads of
variety for US$3 (2 pounds). Or all you can eat pasta for US$1 (60p). I
think I´ve put on a bit of weight recently.

Oh and culture. Of course culture. I mean I have seen some, cos that´s
what I came for. I have seen some cultural things...... at least I think so
........ 9th April I think it was.

- Difunta Correa Shrine - The most materialistic semi-religious place
imagineable. Argentinians pray for houses, cars and anything else they want
and if they get it they build a model of the house, truck or car and leave
it at the shrine. There is a whole town of houses (several hundred) about
1m high on the hillside and a roomful of trucks about 1m long. The room
where those who prayed for sporting success looks more impressive that Real
Madrids trophy room. There are even some rooms that are vaguely religious
but the catholic church apparently shuns this shrine and it is not
surprising. Surreal... it has more goods that some shopping centres I have
been in.

- Salta - The landscape looks like Arizona or Colorado. The shapes of the
rock almost defy belief. The colours of the rock make up an artists
palette, almost all the colours of the rainbow - ever seen green and blue
rock - it´s all here.

So where to go next? Bolivia soon, maybe via Chile, and I must get
somewhere decent to watch some world cup action, not a good time to be in
Argentina just in case England get an unlikely win. Winning the world cup
won´t solve Argentina´s problems but there are a lot of pissed off people
here already and getting knocked out early on sure won´t help !

Bye for now

Luv Pete

Where 16 Puerto Natales, Chile --OR-- Why I Camped for a Week in Freezing Rain just to See Ice

2002-04-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

HI Guys,

Since Buenos Aires a month ago I seem to have travelled on a lot of buses and seen loads of stuff in Patagonia (which consists of the southern
parts of Chile and Argentina).

Starting with a 22 hour bus journey down to Puerto Madryn on the east coast
and then travelled for 34 hours to reach Ushuaia, the most southerly place
of any note on the planet and only 1000km from Antartica which proudly
proclaims that it is ´the end of the world´ and the town itself looks like
it.
From there the only way is north (Antartica will have to wait for another
time when I have loadsa money) to the wonders of the Patagonian Andes - to
El Calafate and El Chalten in Argentina and then across into Chile to Puerto
Natales.

The Ups

- Magallenic penguins at Puerto Tombo on the east coast. It was easy to get
within 1m of them as they just stand or lie around on the path. If you get
too close they start shaking their heads from side to side as a warning and
then they will attack with their powerful beaks.

- The armadillos - Cute but different to how I imagined. I thought they
would move like tortoises due to the weight of their armour, but in fact
they scurry like hedgehogs (and are about the same size) - but they are not flat like
most hedgehogs seen in UK.

- Moreno Glacier - This huge glacieris about 160m high at the face although
a max of 55m is above water, and the face is 6km wide. Not only can you get
within 250m of it to see the detail of the cracking ice under huge pressure,
but because the lake suddenly gets very deep and the glacier is moving at 2m
per day at the centre, it calves (huge chanks of ice up to 40m high break
off and crash into the water). The noise is deafening as it cracks and
tonnes of ice hit the water. A spectacular blue ice giant, a random ice
sculpture in motion - it easily lives up to all the hype.

- Trekking in the FitzRoy Range - spent 3 days doing day treks around a
group of incredible spikey snowcapped mountains with a few glaciers and
corresponding lakes thrown in. There was also a load of rain and some
extremely stong winds when it was only just possible to remain standing. It
throughly tested my wet weather and wind proof gear , not to mention my legs
and made for an interesting few days.

The Downs

- Trying to see Orcas (Killer Whales) snatching seal pups off the beach. We
spent a whole day at the only place in the world where they have learned to
do this successfully but despite appearing the previous 2 days they didn´t
show up.

- The Welsh towns in Argentina are a big tourist draw. Colonised by the
Welsh in 19th Century because they felt oppressed at the English not allowing
them to speak Welsh in Wales, they moved here and now all speak Spanish !
The Welsh teas are famous and expensive except no-one from the UK had ever
heard of them. The only things that these towns really have in common with
Wales are the surrounding hills which look like slag heaps and the very high
unemployment rate.

- After 34 hours travelling to Ushuaia we arrived 3 hours late due to
roughweather on the ferry crossing to find that our reserved hostel places had been
given to other people. Since it was already 1am by this stage we ended up
spending the night sleeping in a corridor.

- Trekking in Tierra del Fuego National Park I got snowed off a small mountain. Strange to think that England must have had snow in March and here I was at the other end of the earth getting exactly the same weather - and it´s only early autumn here.

- Took a very cheap flight from Ushuaia to El Calafate but because of rain
at the destination airport it was closed so we were diverted and then got a
bus the rest of the way. We were supposed to arrive at 6.30pm but didn´t
get there until 3am by which time the hostel was closed and so we had to
sleep in a bus station until 6.30am when the hostel opened. Then I was stuck there for 2 more days as the rain poured down and the roads to both my possible destinations had been washed away. It doesn´t help when the locals say "It´s very unusual
for this time of year".

The Trek (Ups and Downs) - Torres del Paine, Chile

If you want to eat 0.75kg of chocolate, 1kg of nuts and raisens, loads of
pasta and rice and still lose weight, with a free leg muscle tone up thrown
in then this is for you. 7 days hiking and 7 nights camping around ´The
Circuit´ which circles a group of improbably shaped spectacular mountains -
strangely eroded sedimentary layers pierced by hard volcanic plugs which now
stand high above their surrounds. The whole area is a birthing place for
glaciers which dangle down steep mountains and sweep through valleys.
The Torres (towers) themselves are spear shaped granite plugs thrusting vertically 1.8km (over 1 mile) upwards from our viewpoint at 1000m. Well worth the 30 minute dawn race in freezing weather, from the campsite up the scree to see them change from purple to pink then orange and yellow in the first rays of the sun before it gets fully light. Just below them there is a glacier which crumbles into a lake full of icebergs. An incredible sight.
There are downsides however. Apart from the climb up with full pack
(weighing over 20kg) there was camping in sub-zero temperatures - I left my
water bottle outside on the first 2 nights and the water was distinctly
lumpy the next morning. I hardly slept for the first 2 nights as my feet
were freezing despite me wearing all my clothes in my sleeping bag. It is
also difficult to keep your hands clean as washing them in freezing water is
simply not a good idea in the morning or evening as they simply never get
warm again. And as for wearing the same clothes for 8 days without a
shower.... well .... everyone does it so no-one notices !

All round the circuit (we walked 6 or 7 hours a day) the views were
amazing, snowcapped jagged peaks were the norm, spectacular summits were
always there (if only that cloud would move !) and there were glaciers around
almost every corner. If you were looking at an incredible view ahead of you
then there was probably one at least as good behind you as well.

The best view of all is when you trek up through areas of snow and rise to
a height of over 1200m to go over ´The Pass´. From here there is not only
an almost aerial view of the huge Glacier Grey 1000m below but a view up to
the source of many of the glaciers in the area - the huge Southern
Patagonian Ice Field. A huge sheet of ice stretching across mountain tops,
over 320km long, covering an area of over 13,000 square km and hundreds of
metres thick. Vast is too small a word - it is a sheet laying across
everything, smoothing out what would otherwise be a mountainous landscape,
stretching further than the eye can see, emitting glaciers at every possible
opportunity down every valley, flowing like rivers, colliding smoothly in an
ever increasing mass and constantly restucturing to fit the valley´s width.

A No. 1 sight - perhaps the No.1 sight in an incredible part of the world. It rained for days 7 and 8 but by then we had seen so much we weren´t so bothered - although camping in the cold rain is not particuarly recommended.

Tonight I am catching a boat up to Pueto Montt - a 3 day and night trip
through some incredible scenery - that is if the weather holds good.

Bye for now
Luv
Pete

Where 15 Buenos Aires, Argentina --OR-- Waterfall Heaven

2002-03-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

Since Rio I have taken a 23 hour bus jouney to Iguassu Falls on Brazil
-Argentine Border and then bus again to Asuncion in Paraguay. After a few
days there I had another bus trip, 22 hours, to Buenos Aires, Argentina (it
dosen´t look like a big country but is the 8th largest in the world and so
there are quite a few more long bus trips to come).

Brazil (continued)

Big Highs
BRAZIL- ARGENTINE Border

- Iguassu Falls. I wasn´t expecting that much - after all I have seen
Victoria Falls and how different can another waterfall be. How wrong I was.
These falls are absolutely incredible stretching for over 2km with every
part being different - raging torrents, long sheer drops, interspersed with
beautiful trickles draped in weed and multi level cascades. Each part is
spectacular and/or beautiful in it´s own right. All this topped of by the
pinnacle of dramatic endeavour, the Devils Throat, a semi circular
thunderous mass of collapsing water into the unseen depths of a mighty
unfillable pit. And I still haven´t mentioned the near 360 degree rainbow
down below me when I was standing on the edge peering down into the mist. Access to the falls is by numerous walkways almost taking you into the falls
themselves. This is not just a viewing feast but an interactive experience
- a complex arrangement of water gymnastics - full flowing power - so random
and yet so precise and consistent.
If Walt Disney were going to build a waterfall attraction then they would
build one just like this.
In comparison Vic Falls is about as beautiful as a overflowing drainpipe.

Lows
- Getting money out of Brazilian Banks is a joke. They have rows of brand
new ATMs (far more andvanced than in UK) which do everything except clip
your toenails and are plastered with Visa and Mastercard stickers and then
you come to use either of these cards to get anything out ...... BUGGER ALL
´appens!!!

- Passing Sao Paolo on the bus there was a river which must be the most
polluted I have ever seen. At a nearby service station there were 5
different coloured bins for different types of waste - very environmentally
friendly I thought. I wonder if this means they throw the rubbish from each
bin into different parts of the river?

PARAGUAY
In my Lonely Planet covering Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay there are 13
highlights. None of these are in Paraguay or Uruguay. Enough Said. To
call Paraguay unimpressive would be to significantly overstate it´s
cultural, geographic and historical value.
But then again no place is without its ´points of interest´ ......

Relative Highs
- I decided to get the bus from the bus station to the hotel. Unfortunately
I didn´t, speak the language (my spanish is still at an early stage), didn't have a
clue which buses went where and my only map had the hotel and a couple of
roads around it. After half an hour I guessed we must have got to about the area
where the hotel was and I got off. And there was the hotel exactly opposite me. Now how often does that happen? Not often believe me.

- Met some very friendly locals - had very slow conversation in Spanish
helped by a McDonalds Spanish English dictioary with phrases like ´The dog
does not sing, nor the cat´ and ´he make a lot of noise when he plays with
other boys´......

- More importantly the beer bottles are getting bigger. In Brazil a large
bottle was 600ml (cost $1). in Paraguay a small bottle is 630ml and a large
980ml (cost $0.5). Something is going right.

Dangerously Lows
- Paraguay is not dangerous I was told. Then we passed a normal shop which
has two guys outside sitting on stools fully armed with pump action
shotguns. The Lloyds TSB (yes they really have them) was permanently
guarded by 4 fully armed guards... just like home, not.

- I changed some US$ for local currency with a strange man in a bus station
(as you do). He scoffed at my $10 note which had a slight tear but was
otherwise crisp and pristine. After some reassurance he accepted it and
proceeded to give me the shabiest, dirtiest and most sellotaped notes I have
ever seen in my life. I found out that these were perfectly acceptable in
Paraguay - In fact, I think that the value of the note increases with the
addition of more sellotape.

- The showers in this part of the world are cold water but have a heater
immediately above the shower head to at least partly heat the water. This
means that the electrics (often bare wires coming straight out of the wall)
come dangerouly close to the water. Whilst in the shower I sensed a burning
smell and seconds later the showerhead burst into flames - I stood there frozen not sure quiet what to do. After 15 seconds it burnt itself out. I didn´t tell the owners as they would have only repaired it (not desirable) so I had cold showers from then on.

URUGUAY
It was only a day trip across the River Plate from Buenos Aires to Colonia
but I got another shed load of stamps in my passport (I am seriously running
out of room) but from what I saw:

Highs
- It was a colonial town (hence the name !) so very pretty.

Lows
- It rained nearly all day and the sun came out just as we were getting the
boat back.
- It was touristy (Argentinian tourists mainly) and expensive.

Apart from that Uruguay is apparently much like Argentina without the bits
worth seeing.

ARGENTINA
So trying to avoid talk of wars and football (neither of which was
completely achieved) I ventured forward.

Argentina is a rich country with a good, modern infrastructure. And it´s
bankrupt.
- Currently over 30% of everyones savings has been taken from them by the
Govt. and they are not allowed to withdraw all of what´s left. (Govt has
converted US$ held in bank accounts into pesos at $1 = P1.4, whist the market
rate is over $1=P2.0)
- Mistrust is now so high that Argentines would rather put their money under
the matress than in the bank.
- No one is buying anything other than necessities despite every shop having
a ´Sale´.
- Official unemployment is 18% but actual rate is nearer 30% and this will
increase very rapidly as large nos. of people are laid off daily and this
will cause further problems as spending reduces and prices rise. A vicious
circle, and barring a miracle, the knock on effects of this over the next
few months will be catastophic. I could go on ....

Dollars (Highs)
- BsAs is a Europèan style city but with trees lining virtually every street, open parks, wide roads and a high % of cobbled streets - very pretty in places. It also bustles with too much traffic, many poor areas and currently over 13 million pissed off Argentines.
- Spent a couple of days in the coutry just outside Buenos Aires with a
fairly poor family none of whom spoke english (it´s a long story but I met
one of them on the bus). Making Empanardas (like cornish pasties) on the
kitchen table and sitting a round drinking Mate (a tea type drink which is
very much a social event) in the sunshine is a nice way to spend some time.
- The beef here is huge and cheap and makes up a large part of the diet. The
wine is also cheap and although the locals drink wine at every meal they
don´t drink much - half a small glass seemed about average. No need to
finish the bottle off here ...... it will get drunk tomorrow (maybe this
should have been a low).
- Friendly and hospitable locals. Met up with a couple I met briefly in
Bangkok over a year ago who showed me round BsAs.
- La Boca - the area of BsAs that is home to houses of many colours and the
Tango - and also a fair chance of getting mugged i.e. not the best area and
I was warned by the police not to walk more than 2 blocks from the touristy
centre of the area.
- The economic crisis has doubled the no. of Pesos I get for my $ so
everything is much cheaper than if I had come here 3 months ago.

Pesos (Lows)
- The economic situation. I had to mention it again, Argentines are talking
of little else...
- Kissing the boys. Kissing everyone even in business is the norm. I spent
most of one evening kissing guys I didn´t even know!

If your still reading then it was worth me writing all this (unless you
skipped straight to this end bit). Now I´m off down south to see some
wildlife and then heading to the most southerly city on the planet....

Love
Pete

Where 14 Rio de Janerio, Brazil --OR-- Beaches, Breasts, Bums and Carnival

2002-02-16T16:07:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys,

And you thought that I had forgotten to email you it has been so long.......

After deciding UK was just too cold and gloomy I left uk on 19/1/02 and spent a week in NY en route to Rio de Janerio for 6 months of hard intensive work in South America (no I didn´t think that you would believe that).
Actually I decided to hit the beaches a few hours down the coast from Rio and retuned to Rio for the Carnival (and hit the beaches again!)

NEW YORK
Was it what I expected ? Amazingly Yes. Almost everything was exactly what I expected - I must have been watching far too many of those US TV programs !

Skyscrapers (The Highs)
- The Empire State Building - Completed in 1930 and once again the tallest building in NY. Majestic against the skyline (most of the other tall buildings are some distance away).

- Brooklyn Bridge - walking across the this web of wires and pylons in the blazing sunshine towards the skyline of lower Manhaten is simply amazing.

- Seeing Winne the Pooh and Friends - now over 80 years old they are barely recognisable as the ones on sale in the nearby Disney Store or FOA Schwartz toyshop (that's because they look completely different - where the tubby version of Pooh came from I have no idea).

- For those whose knowledge of New York comes from watching ´Friends´, Bloomingdales is a shoppers paradise if you can afford it(the most expensive thing I found was a crystal US flag about 0,5m x 0,3m which cost $30,000); and there really is a Pottery Barn and they do sell apocathery tables for $499 (but only by mail order).

Low Rise (the worst bits)
- The remains of the WTC. Physically there is actually nothing left, the rubble has been removed and the site is now a regular building site. All over NY there are messages of hope and pictures of ´missing´ family and friends. Upon every subway car and bus the stars and stripes have been
freshly added; outside most houses and on many cars the flag flies and New Yorkers look at the ´new skyline´ with dismay.

- Shopping at Macy´s, the worlds largest store. It is actually very boring.

- The weather - from snow and below freezing to bright sunshine and 15C in less than a week - I just never knew what to wear when going out.

BRAZIL

The breast bits

- The Carnival. It is hard to give a good overall description of the Carnival in Rio. Most of it is a bit mediocre and it is difficult to find out what is going on where at what time. However the Main parades put on by the samba schools are absolutely amazing. The floats are fantastic with
huge moving parts and the costumes (of which there are thousands in each parade) are breathtakingly detailed - unfortunately most people never get to see the detail as most of us were too far away. Nevertheless here was the glitz and glamour I had been expecting and I was not dissapointed. Each parade lasts 1 hour 20 minutes. There are 14 main contestants for the
championship over 2 nights. We got in there at 1am on the second night, saw 4 parades and it didn't finish until 7am. Knackering.

- The beaches in and around Rio are supurb (Copacabana and Ipanema are the main ones in Rio) white sand which is actually clean, and warm water. The beach culture here is something to be marvelled at - make of that what you will. Oh and hanging out on the beach with a load of other travellers/Brazilians that I just met and having a ball! Cool stuff.

- Managed to get a game of football on the beach in Rio - well we really do have to take on the Brazilians at OUR own game. Scored a goal, pulled a muscle (no pun intended). I was easily the Most Valuable Player on the pitch as I was still wearing my moneybelt with all my cash and travellers cheques in it, but better on the person than left almost anywhere else.

- Views from
Sugar Loaf mountain - great views of the beaches and coastline from 400m up. Rio is actually built around a whole bunch of steep peaks.
Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio. Actually the statue of the late JC is rather ordinary .... but what a view he has - from 700m up it is nearly an aerial view - Does he really live here ... well it may not be heaven but it's pretty close. Up there with views from Table Mountain (Cape Town) and Victoria Peak (Hong Kong).

- The people in Brazil have been fantastic - so friendly even though most of them don't speak english and always willing to help. The bus drivers/conductors even tell you the correct place to get off when you haven't even told them where you are going .... amazing !

The cover up (bad bits)

- On the beach topless is out (except for the boys - any displayed breasts are boys that are part way to being girls). However the Brazilians do have the most minute bikinis imaginable - tiny triangles imaginatively connected by straps. As one girl pointed out this is a bum culture and the girls show as much as they can.

- The weather is a bit oppressive - over 35C in the shade and very high humidity. There are some cooler days when you can walk around without pouring sweat so long as you don´t walk up any hills or carry a backpack! It gets down to 25C at night but is still humid.

- the no. of travellers I have met who have been mugged or robbed (sometimes by thieves in costume), sometimes in broad daylight. There is no longer a distinction between being safe and paranoid.

So at last the hassle of finding accomadation for carnival is over and I actually get to travel somewhere. Next up is a 23 hour, 1500km bus journey down to Iguassu Falls on the border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.
Then into Paraguay and down to Buenos Aires before hitting the cool of Patagonia. Well thats the plan but it will change I'm sure ..... only 5 months left so I'd better get some more sun in ....

Best Wishes
Pete

Where 13 - London via Tahiti and Easter Island

2001-11-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

HI Peeps,

Back in the UK at this time of year in the cold and dark ? I must be mad ! But after 12 months of travelling comtinuously I decided that I needed a bit of a break as I was getting so blase about seeing all these wonderful places and people. Not to mention moving on every couple of days....... I just need a holiday !

So I'm back near London for a few weeks and planning to go back to South America in January and pick up where I left off. Before I came back I did manage to take in the delights of French Polynesia and Easter Island plus a couple of nights in Santiago, Chile.

The Good Bits
- The strange Moai (carved stone statues) of Easter Island. They are up to 10m high with tiny hands and no legs - really they are all Head and belly ! As well as several ceremonial sites where they stand there are 600 of them at the quarry where they were carved; many of these are hidden up to their necks in the ground with heads of 5m tall.

- French Polynesia (Tahiti and Morea) - This is Paradise! Beautiful lagoons, clear waters, great snorkelling - just like it says in all the advertising blurb!
- Swimming with the Stingrays - they are surprisingly timid creatures and will rub past you with their enourmous 1 metre 'wingspan'.
- Shark feeding - the black tipped reef sharks are up to 3m long. Being in the water with them is adrenalin pumping stuff (no shark cage).

The Bad bits
- Shark Feeding - well they are supposed to eat the fish, but I reckon their eyesight isn't up to much. One of them just swam right into my chest and I felt it (luckily their mouths are set below their snouts and so it didn't get a bite out of me). I decided that shark feeding is not such a great idea !
- the food on Easter Island is the worst on this trip (with the possible exception of Lao). The supermarkets were fully stocked with nothing good to eat !
- French Poly was expensive - I think the most expensive place I've been. Great weather though.
- The UK - This is definitelly the most expensive place I've been. And shame about the weather !!
- The journey back -another long journey from Santiago (27 hours) - somehow I managed to fly into and out of Soa Paulo twice in the same day and not get off either time !

Looking forward to January....
Luv
Pete

Where 12 Auckland, New Zealand --OR-- SkyDiving into the Freezer for Free Beer?

2001-10-29T03:49:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

Hopped over here from Sydney 6 weeks ago and have been travelling around North and South Islands (Such original names - Captain Cook is probably to blame). There is also a West Island (according to some Kiwis) - which some people call Australia! (It's funny the first time but everyone tells the same joke and it wears off really quickly).

High Points

- the highest point reached was 12,000 feet(nearly 2.5 miles/4 km ) above ground. And then inexplicably I jumped out. Yes at last I got round to skydiving (tandem) above Lake Taupo which was an amazing experience travelling at 125mph / 200kph downwards and yet I hardly felt I was moving - and what a view. Recommended if you are mad with an excess of cash -although its a lot cheaper here than in UK).

- Glacier climbing on Franz Joseph Glacier. As if it wasn't cold enough already it started to rain ! It was amazing going through the ice tunnels and squeeaing through the narrow cracks in the glacier - and the ice was so blue - just like a Foxes Glacier Mint!

- Milford Sound - It's a Fiord not a Sound (i.e. carved by ice not water) with sides that go nearly vertically up over 1 mile (1670 metres). Absolutely spectacular ! After a while you get used to the scale and it starts to look smaller..............

- Tranz Alpine Railway between Christchurch and Greymouth - one of the top 6 railway journeys of the world - across the plain to the snow capped mountains, over some and through others....... and as a bonus there is a special wagon where you can stand out in the freezing cold to watch it all !

- Mount Cook (the highest Mountain in NZ) National Park. Had a snowball fight with fresh snow and met a Kea, the worlds only alpine parrot. It followed me around staying 5 metres behind me, just walking in the snow, for some reason it couldn't be bothered to fly. Trying to scare one of these away is not recommended as you have to get so close they will bit you - and
they have big sharp beaks. They often eat windsreen wiper blades and shoes........

- Wildlife - the Yellow eyed penguins are dead cute, the albatross are huge (wingspan is the largest of any bird at over 3 metres) and the Kiwi is fairly stupid (!) although I only saw them in captivity (in the dark and even that wasn't easy). NZ has 80 million possums (imported from Oz originally) and most of them are very flat and live next to the road - or so it seems.......
And there's the rarest duck in the world the Campbell Island Teal with only 50 left in the wild (it's not very exciting though!) I could go on about NZ birds..........but I won't.
Surprisingly the only mammels native to NZ are bats - everything else has been brought in - and as in OZ anything that is not native is hated by most of the population!

- Whale watching (again) This time Sperm Whales the biggest toothed whales. They don't jump out of the water though so actually it was pretty boring - roll on Humpback whales anytime.

- Boiling hot geysers and vigourously boiling pools of water in Rotorua - the whole places does smell of sulphur though!

- To make up for the heat I did my first cold water dive - I had the whole wetsuit with boots and hood and 12kg weights round my waist to make up for the buoyant effect of the suit. And it was still freezing!! (rated *** in freezer terms). The dive site (Poor Knights Islands - another daft Captain Cook name) was rated one of the top 10 in the world by that Cousteau fellah. Fish and plant life were really good though.

- The Maori culture is much more accessable than the Aboriginal people in Oz and the Maoris are much more integrated into society as a whole and there appears to be little racism. Hoorah for NZ and the positive attitude of the Moaris !

The Lows

- The Torrangiro Crossing - usually the best one day walk in NZ. But on the day we walked it the wind was howling over the ridge at around 60 kph trying to blow us off the ridge down the vertical drop, we were in cloud, in was wet, visability was ...er... low and it was bloody freezing (a **** freezer). Just to make it worse after we had come down from the ridge where supposedly the best views were it cleared and the sun came out - for about 5 mins anyway) - a real experience !!
- The NZ wine here is no cheaper than it is back in UK ! Why that is I have no idea.

- The free beer tap in Dunedin. Yes this should be a high.. BUT....... We were told of this free beer tap as we passed the Speights Brewery in a van ... free beer you must be joking ? There was the tap coming straight through the wall of the brewery - but if this tap was really dispensing free beer then surely there would be a queue of people with polypins ... and
there was ! So off we went (sod the wildlife there's free beer in that there wall ... er... I mean this is culture!) and when we got to the tap there is was .... free flowing .... nearly colourless (but then thats Speights beer for you !) ....... and just about tasteless as well (again that's Speights beer). Very very like water in fact (that's Speights!). Are you Seriously saying that all these people
queue up here with their polypins to get water out of this tap when they could just turn on the tap at home ? Er yes they do! NZ has never had a great reputation as a beer drinking nation .... and there is no way it's ever going to get one now. 'Just popping down the brewery for a few pints of water love' just dosen't wash !!!

- And I might just mention that it is a pain travelling with people who can't get into a pub 'cos they are too young - 16 years old to be exact. And before you start thinking THAT - the answers NO!

Next up is Tahiti (where hopefully it will be a bit warmer and less rainy than the North Island of NZ) for 9 days then Easter Island for 4 days and then Lima in Peru to start some challenging travelling !!! I am trying to learn Spanish but it's slow going !

Bye for Now
Luv
Pete

Where 11 Sydney, Australia --OR-- Searching for Culture through the Bottom of a Beer Bottle (Stubbie)

2001-09-19T03:37:00.000-07:00

Wherever you are in the world - chillin' out at a new age encampment between Brisbane for Sydney, for example (which I was), as far away from reality as I could get at that moment, there are things that happen that grab me by the balls and remind me that I am still part of that world that I am trying to get around, like these events in New York a week ago. With these events in mind it is difficult to get my little world in perspective. So for the purposes of this email I have decided to ignore perspective and the real world, and concentrate on the insignificant happenings of the past 6 weeks..... welcome to my world........

Since last time when I was in Bali I have flown to Darwin, toured round the national parks there, gone down to Alice Springs, tripped out to Uluru (Ayres Rock)and The Olgas. Then flown to Cairns at the north end of the east coast and travelled down the east coast stopping off at a variety of (mainly) interesting places en route. Finally I have reached Sydney.

Note : Written with due apologies to any Aussies who may be reading this.

Firstly I should say that Oz is a confusing place e.g.
- the Adelaide river is nowhere near Adelaide
- the Victoria highway does not go to Victoria
- Saltwater crocodiles live in freshwater (this is important when it comes to swimming in fresh water as the Salties may eat you! (or me!))

Up Top (The Good Bits)

- The main highlight of my time in Oz is obvious..... Stuffing Germany 5-1 in their own backyard. I met several Germans after that and mysteriously all claimed to have no interest in football. Odd that !!

- Kakadu National Park (NP) near Darwin - fantastic scenery and waterfalls - although the water was COLD (very).

- Uluru - the climb up was very steep and so windy that halfway up I wished they had closed it - I thought I was gonna be blown off but fortunately there was a heavyweight chain to hang on to (and I did - with both hands). An amazing place, great sunset and sunrise although it would have been better if we hadn't had to stand with a few hundred people sipping champagne to watch it (we had one warm beer between about 10 of us....) The Olgas are worth a mention - they are similar to Uluru but from certain angles they look like Homer Simpson lying down - Yes Really!

- Diving off Cairns with a rather large Green Turtle (although it was brown in colour). I swam along next to it for a few minutes. Amazing complany, it was very friendly waving it's flipper at me as we swam along together although, to be honest, it didn't say that much.

- Seeing kangaroos, dingos, koalas, camels and a duck billed platypus all in the wild (though not at the same time). The dbp was a bit tricky as we had to wait 1.5 hours for it and then only saw it for 5 seconds - but hey I saw one ! PS It was unimpressive ! The koala was better - got to within 2m of it as it munched it's way through loads of leaves ....... OK so that wasn't that exciting either...... my tiny travelling companions thought it was cute though !

- Humpback Whale watching in Hervey Bay - didn't see many of them but the ones we did see were on form as the enormous mammel jumped high out of the water just so we could take photos of them jumping high out of the water.....

- Whitsunday Islands - 3 days on a racing yacht (not that we raced) more of a cruise really, to the fantastic white sands of Whitehaven beach (reckoned to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world - and we didn't even take a bucket and spade; Damn !)

- Driving a 4x4 on the largest sand island in the world and getting stuck loads of times (everyone else had to push but I was OK - I was driving - nuff said).

- Surfing - Well you just have to ! After all this is Australia.

- Learning to play the didgeredoo - Well you just have to ! After all this is Australia.

- The 'occasional' Party nights with loadsa beer - Well you just have to ! After all this is Australia.

Down Under (The Bad Bits)

- 'Occasional' Hangovers every morning after the 'occasional' party nights out.

- The cost of it all - it may be cheaper than UK but it's about 4 times the price of SE Asia from whence I came so it seems really expensive.

- The aboriginals many of whom are displaced and apparently without hope or motivation. Most of the ones I saw just sat around all day doing nothing.
(Not to be mistaken for fellow travellers who may act in a simiar manner!)

- The whole country is culturally devoid (almost).

- The endless number of small and lifeless towns with near negative populations that are strewn about the country. I think some of them may have stopped breathing!

- There are no Australians here (cos they are all working in pubs in London). Everyone is English and surely half the point in getting away in the first place was to meet some different people. In some places 'a local' is an English person who has been in Australia for more than a month.

- The rest of the travellers on the east coast are teenage girls. OK OK ...... so there are some advantages in that ........ but I shall restrain myself and say no more ... not even ...Well you just have to ! After all this is Australia.

There is loads more i could say but you would get really bored and I would run out of internet time....

Tomorrow I'm off to New Zealand for about 6 weeks, and then to some south pacific islands - and they really will be the middle of nowhere...

Bye for now

Luv Pete

Where 10 Bali, Indonesia --OR-- Heaven is an Erupting Volcano

2001-08-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Just a few things done in Indonesia - starting in Medan (from Singapore via Penang in Malaysia)on the island of Sumatra, and then down through the island (on some incredibly long and uncomfortable bus journeys)for 2.5 weeks, to Jakarta by 33 hour ferry, through Java via train and bus, then by boat to Bali, Lombok and back to Bali.

The Most Spectacular:

- Mount Bromo in Java at sunrise was the most spectacular natural wonder I have ever seen - a huge crater containing an active volcano (only steam though) backed by another huge volcano belching clouds of steam - you'll have to see the pictures words cannot describe it !! We went down to the active crater and walked approx 1km round the rim which was only 15cm wide in places, a sheer drop on either side and crumbling as each person walked round it. There was one point where I was hanging on for .... something ..... just trying to get across whilst all the locals were almost trotting round it in their flipflops. It was a TOTAL experience the best morning I have ever spent (though some bits I may decline to do again !!)

- Mount Merapi, also in Java (the most active volcanic island in the world).
We went up at midnight to watch the lava coming down the sides (it glows bright red in the dark) and when we eventually did see lava it was bright red rock crashing and bouncing down the slope at an incredible speed (hundreds of miles an hour) and sending off fountains of sparks every time a huge lump hit the ground - absolutely incredible. Over the following few days I heard several stories of people being killed when they got just that bit too close.....

- Lakes Maninjau and Toba in Sumatra - Beautiful lakes set in volcano craters. Toba is supposedly 850m deep in places making it ... deep. The water was really clear and the p a c e
o f l i f e w a s s o s l o w . . . . . And it was so cheap US$ 3 for a lovely room with great balcony views in the top hotel...... sod the culture, I stayed there a while......

- Oran Utans in Sumatra - we went to a rehabilitation centre where they take them from captivity and make them wild again (takes about 7 years). The semi-wild apes come out of the jungle to feed from a feeding station and seeing them in their natural habitat is incredible. They are closely related to humans and it shows. They just hand around (literally - ever seen an ape hang on to branch with one hand, hand on to its baby with another whilst holding a banana with a foot and peeling it with the other foot) and chill out watching us watching them !

- Borobudur in Java - A fantastic circular Buddhist temple on many levels with some really unusual touches, great form and some very well preserved reliefs (2.5km of them) all in stone and built before 850 AD.

- The people in some of the poorer bits of Jakarta; dark narrow alleys with small houses crammed into any available space - but the people are so friendly (the friendliest I have met in any large city) even though most spoke no English, and some of the few people in Indonesia who weren't trying to get money out of me. They gave me a kite which I was trying to fly from
their tiny backyard and I ended up having a kite fight (with another kite) although I was blissfully unaware of this until they exclaimed in unison 'You've Lost' as my kite tumbled earthwards ...........

- Gili Nanggu near Lombok - a tiny island where there were only about 10 other foreigners and a few locals - great snorkelling (huge variety of fish, superbly colourful soft corals etc) and so relaxing i'm yawning just thinking about the place .......

- Another Full moon Party - a tiny affir with only about 50 people but it really mushroomed !

The Least Spectacular

- Travelling in Sumatra - my worst journey so far - 20 hours on a bus where there wasn't enough room to sit up properly - it helps if you know the person next to you quite well !

- the cities of Sumatra - more rats, pollution, mess and awful accomodation than anywhere else I have been.

- travelling on local transport in Bali - it just isn't worth the hassle. I had to bargain for nearly an hour to pay only 6 times more than the locals and just for a 10km journey !

- 5 am prayers. They even stopped the bus so all the muslims (90% of passengers) could get off and pray. And then there are the loudspeakers on every mosque ! Christianity and Buddhusm are definitely in favour at the moment as they are 'quiet religions'. I even had my head shaved as the first step to becoming a Buddhist monk but changed my mind .......

The Summary:
Samatra is Stunning
Java is Fascinating
Lombok is Relaxing
Bali is a touristy Rip Off

Anyway, about half way round the planet now in distance and time, and now for something completely different. I'm off to Oz and looking forward to seeing the Wizard !!

Luv Pete

Where 9 Singapore --OR-- More Western than the West

2001-06-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

Hi Peeps

I have been really busy the past few weeks so haven't had time to email (those beaches and clear waters are really time consuming.....)

After Myanma I went South from Bangkok to Thailands east coast and spent 3 weeks on Ko Tao island. Then to the west coast to see the limestone pinnacles at Krabi. South to Malaysia - Penang , Kuala Lumpar, into the jungle (not that KL isn't) in Tamar Negara for a few days, Malaka and then Singapore.....

Highs
- Diving and snorkelling in Thailand was excellent - saw loads of fish, sharks, octopus, squid, hard and soft corals etc... including Xmas Tree Worms which look like tiny colourful Xmas Trees underwater!
- Passed my Advanced Open Water PADI (diving certification) and did night diving and night snorkelling - just a bit creepy night snorkeling on my own!

- Limestones pinnacles rising out of thw water near Krabi - this is where they filmed 007 'The Man with the Golden Gun' in 1973. The bit they used in the film looks a lot bigger on the screen than it did in real life !! (But then in 007 films everything looks bigger than in real life !! - apart from the things that look smaller that is.....)

- Tallest buildings in the world in KL. The Petronas Towers are 452m tall and have 88 floors. The view is good but partly blocked by all the other tallest buildings in the world ! (Actually we could only go up to level 41).

- The oldest rainforest in the world - the jungle at Taman Negara in Malaysia in 130 million years old and is full of trees, bushes, trees, vines, trees and trees and is fantasticly beautiful. The trees grow up to 60 m tall and their surface roots seem even longer ! There are a few animals living there but there is just about zero chance of seeing any (even though you can hear them all night long !) as the jungle is very dark and denser than most US presidents. I spent the last night in a hide deep in the jungle with all the other people who booked it - except that no-one else did and I was alone !! Apart from the bumps on the roof that is ....well .. I mean you've all seen 'Friday 13th' right......

- Full Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan - it had to be done as it is a bit of an institution. It was good fun but a just a tad over commercialised - maybe the highlight of the night was watching England beat Greece 2-0..........

- The food ! It's just great and cheap - even in S'pore you can get cheap food if you know where to go.....

- Night Safari in S'pore - definitely worth a visit - the best bit was going into a large cage with flying fox bats (the largest bats in the world) they are huge (half rat and half wing)but they are (nearly) cute really!

Not so Highs

- Having my camera stolen on Ko Tao (Ok so I shouldn't fall asleep on the beach at night) - luckily I didn't lose any good pictures....

- lascerating my hand on coral while diving. The worst bit is looking at all the green stuff coming out of my hand ..... After a bit I worked out that all the red light is absorbed by the water at that depth and so blood looks green. Well at least that's what I hoped it was......

- Being attacked by a Trigger fish whilst snorkelling. Thay are less than 0.5m long but are very fast, have big teeth and can easily bite off an ear. On Ko Tao they are very aggressive for no reason. I shoved my sandals in it's face but it kept attacking, 4 times in total. I was as scared - as a fish out of water ! And I didn't go near any trigger fish after that.

- Cost of S'pore (especially the beer). It wouldn't have been so bad but it was just the place for a party so we spent shedloads on the stuff.. and had a great time (I may have to stay in US$1 per night places in Indonesia though...)

- Culture shock in Malaysia and Singapore - the places are so westernised. Everyone had a mobile phone the first I have seen in months. KL has more McDonalds than any other place I have ever been. S'pore is more westernised than any western place I have ever been - where is all the dirt ??? At least they still have rats in S'pore although not a single pigeon ! Any
guesses?

And that was the posh places - now to the grime of Indonesia .......

Best Wishes
Luv
Pete

Where 8 - Yangon, Myanmar --OR-- Dictating a World of Culture

2001-05-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

HI Peeps,

What a month in Myanmar (formerly Burma) - I hardly know where to start or
what to write ........ OK I do know ... as little as possible.

After leaving Lao spent a few days in Chang Mai and then a couple of days in
Bangkok before flying to Myanmar where I spent 4 weeks travelling around.

A few things you should know about Myanmar
- It is a Military State.
- The military lost the elections in 1990 but quashed the result and have
absolute power (there appears to be no ACTIVE opposition and whilst almost
everyone is strongly against the military government they appear to be
content to just wait for something [anything] to happen and bring change
rather than trying to force anything themselves).
- There is no freedom of press or expression of adverse views allowed, and
state informants are everywhere (one comedian was sentenced to 7 years
prison with hard labour in 1996 for telling jokes about the government - and
he is still there). Locals are reluctant to talk to foreigners about
certain issues unless well away from prying ears.
- Corruption is absolutely endemic and is quite open (and therefore all the
top military people are incredibely rich).
- The rest of the population are poor although not desperately poor -
perhaps similar to Vietnam.
- In the rural areas the main forms of transport are pony and trap (for
people) and ox cart (for goods).
- Culture is very traditional - e.g. virtually all men wear longyis (a type
of sarong) - though this is also enforced by law.
- Buddhism is very important - some poor people give up to 70 percent of
their income to Buddhism (this is probably why they are poor whilst the
temples are covered in gold and jewels). In one village the villagers paid
for a monastry to be built rather than spending the money on a water pump to
save them having to collect water from the bottom of the valley !
- The people are very friendly towards foreigners.
- Draught beer is 15cents US (10p) a glass !

The best bits:
- Bagan (Formerly Pagan) - A plain containing over 2,000 temples built
between the 11th and 13th Centuries in brick. A mix of sizes, styles and
colours - majestic in the early morning light - interspersed with farmland
and cart-tracks. A marvellous sight - (although it has be to said that it
does not match up to Angkor, in Cambodia, in size, beauty or detail).
- Inle Lake - A beautiful lake 22km long upon/around which 100,000 people
live from the lake. Most people live on stilt houses and farm the floating
gardens which are staked to the lake floor. Most of the longboats are
paddled standing up using the leg to power the blade through the water.
- Trekking around Kalaw (near Mandalay) - the minority tribes are very
interesting and willing to let you make a fool of yourself joining in the
daily chores such as removing the rice husks with a huge wooden mortar and
pestil (enough said). Stayed at the house of the medicene man in one
village - he gave us some pills which he said contained local herbs,
although on closer questioning it turned out that local herbs included 30%
hash and 10% opium. The're for diahorrea he said ! After that we all had
upset stomachs !!
- There are hardly any foreigners/tourists anywhere !
- Down in the south eastern part where they rarely see foreigners (and the
only bit I did by myself) just walking along the street attracted a huge
amount of attention - everyone saying hello, wanting to shake my hand, buy
me a drink, get me to join in their games etc. After an hour or two it gets
so tiring that I just wanted everyone to go away and stop staring !
- The larest Buddah in the world - still under construction but it will be
160m long when finished in 4 years time (taken 8 years so far and has got
from head to about the knees). I wandered inside (through the missing legs
and up a few floors)to discover in the dim light some newly moulded concrete
statues depicting disturbingly grotesque and realistic scenes of people
being ripped apart by ogres and other animals - apparently a depiction of
hell (it fits into Buddhism between death and rebirth).
- The Golden Rock - An amazing bouldersomehow perched on the top of a cliff
- it should have rolled off ages ago. If Isaac Newton had seen it he would
have reworked his theory about gravity !
On the way up there were stalls selling two main things - religious
artefacts (this is one of the most religious shrines in the coutry) and huge
bamboo guns with rocket launcher attachments that would have had even Rambo
cringing with embarresment at the excess of it all !! And the reason for
this apparent violent tilt at a Buddhist (pacifist) shrine ? I asked one
man - 'It's for the kids' he said !??!

The worst bits:
- The Golden Rock - It's a 4 hour trek - 3.5 if you are fit. So I left at
11am (I had caught the bus at 5am and arrived at the bottom at 10am)and
started to climb but it was so humid I had to stop every 100 yards else I
would have drowned in my own sweat. It was 13km long, all uphill with 1000m
vertical ascent and after walking in cloud and enduring the rain, 5.5
hours later I made it to the top. And then they charged me US$6 to get to
see the boulder !!
The last truck down was at 6pm - BUT they cancelled it because I was the
only passenger. Waited an hour in the then cold rain and eventually was
allowed on the truck carrying all the stall holders down. When I finally
made it back to the guesthouse I told the manager about my day and all he
said was 'You were lucky' ..... er .... How's that then ?
- The heat. Most of the month it was scorching hot - up to 40 degrees C and
it was difficult to do anything between 11am and 3pm.
- At all temples (including ruins) nothing can be worn on the feet anywhere
in the grounds. So whether the path was too hot to walk on or covered in
spikey plants you either suffered or didn't go in (although after the first
time I burnt my feet I cheated a couple of times - much to the annoyance of
my travelling companions who just didn't go in !)
- Being woken up at midnight by the local police who wanted to know what I
was doing there, where I was going and who insisted at looking through all
the visas in my passport - he was particuarly interested in the one from
Egypt 2 years ago !
- Western Pop music is allowed BUT the lyrics have to be in Burmese. So
whilst the music is exactly the same and the words sound very similar, they
have all been sung in Burmese by local artists ! Apparently the words do
make sense but the meaning is not the same. Better than the local music
though..........

Just in cae you thought I was having a holiday here I should just add that
during the last 4 weeks
- I have spent 120 hours travelling (mainly on buses on terrible roads) and
- 30% of the days I have had to get up before 5am either to catch a
bus/train or being chucked off a bus arrived at it's destination - why they
arrive so early no-one could explain !

Now I'm back in Bangkok for the 3rd and hopefully last time (it really is
like coming home !) Anyway after 6 months of travelling at last I'm off for
some relaxation on some remote Thai island (unfortunately the monsoon is
just starting and so I might not get much sun time after
all................)

See ya soon

Luv Pete

Where 7 Chang Mai, Thailand --OR-- One Bus All The Way !?

2001-04-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys,

Oh what fun I have had since last email (Hanoi) - some memorable journeys
(although not for the right reasons) and some serious chilling out........

When I first started travelling I asked a few people already travelling
whether their backpacks got heavier or lighter as they went on. They all
said that they got heavier because they picked up lots of books along the
way. As I don't tend to read many books this isn't likely to happen to me.
So now I have a backpack ladened down with about a dozen books !!!

First of all by bus from Hanoi across the border into Lao and to the capital
Vientiane where I spent a few days waiting for a visa for Myanma (Burma).
Then north to Vang Vieng - a tiny place famous only amoung travellers; and
then north again to Luang Prubang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the New
Year (aka water festival). Then a cruise no less, up the Mekong for 2 days
to the border with Thailand. If only it had been that simple...............

Best Bits
- Vang Vieng is a village with a few locals, loads of travellers and
virtually nothing to do...except play pool, drink beer (US 25c a large
glass) paddle down the river in inflatable canoes, visit some caves, jump in
some pools and just chill out... Big Time. So I spent a f e
w days there ...........

- not to forget the slow 3 hour trip down the river in inflatable inner tubes -
nothing could be more .........er........ nothing

- The water festival. Basically for several days anyone is allowed to soak
anyone else !! In Lao this consists of a few water pistols and a few
small buckets of water mainly being thrown at motorcyclists and other
motorised transport (although no one is exempt). However in Chang Mai (I
got here just before the end of the festival) it is taken slightly more to
extremes....... The streets are packed with pick up trucks packed with huge
barrels of water and people with extra large buckets to get everyone they see soaking wet. The amount of water thrown is immense .... you cannot go out on the street during daylight hours without getting soaked .... carrying passport, travellers cheques etc is not a good idea !

Worst Bits
- the journey from Hanoi to Vientiane. At 22 hours this was always going
to be an experience. However once you have paid your US$26 and given your
ticket to the bus driver as you board you are out on a limb..... (remember
it is guaranteed to be one bus all the way!!) Started 7pm. Got thrown off
the first bus at 2am by a busy road in the middle of nowhere -' you have to
get a different bus from here which leaves at 4am'. Bus no 2 left at 4am
and we get to within 20km of the border (at 7am) and we then have to get a
local bus - this is packed with sacks of grain, bags, people (although
strangely no chickens) and has negative legroom. Then up a huge moutain and
cross the border at a mountain shack at the top. Luckily we have been
promised a luxury minibus from just the other side of the border. 30km the
other side we stop in a small town and thankfully get off the ultra cramped bus! And the
transport for the next stage is a pick up truck (!) with a few seats in the
back. Unfortunately it is already full with 20 people crammed in and the 4
of us are supposed to pile in on top. After some heated 'negotiating' we
get given the money for the remainder of the journey and told to sort it out
ourselves....... So after carefully weighing up our options we realised we
didn't have any ........ so we end up standing on the tailgate of the pick
up holding on for dear life for a couple of hours as we sped on our way.
Then we stopped and a minibus appeared to take us the last 3 hours (bus no.
5 of our guaranteed 'one bus all the way' journey). Still it gives me
something to write about in my emails..............

- Luang Prubang - I expected this world hertitage site to be full of
buildings worth saving (like Hoi An in Vietnam) - but whilst this does have
some pre WW2 french architecture, it has more satelite dishes than charm !

- The jouney out by boat from Luang Prubang to the border is by boat (either
a 1,2 or 3 day journey depending on which boat you choose (the 1 day is very
fast and expensive). I and about 10 others chose the 2 day boat (my visa
expired on the 2nd day so I had to make it to Thailand by then). At
nightfall on the first day we failed to make our expected destination
(stopping at a small village very near the middle of nowhere [actually most
of Lao is the middle of nowhere] and found out that the 'captain' was on a 3
day schedule. So after 1.5 days we made the halfway point and at great
expense transferred to a fast boat and, a tuktuk ride and a ferry later,
just about made the border with 30 mins to spare. Could have done it in 1
day for what it eventuially cost me !!

It's funny how everyone thought of coming back to Thailand almost as coming
home to familiar things. So it's Hurrah for McDonalds then ?
Maybe that would be going just a bit far !!

There has been a slight change of plan - I have decided to go to Myanma
(Burma) for 1 month and this together with my addition excursions into
Cambodia and Lao mean that my original target of coming back in November
(when my ticket runs out) looks unlikely. Plan B is to make South America
by November and take in a few sights there (Patagonia, Carnival in Rio etc
) and come back home around Easter next year....

Luv
Pete

Where 6 - Hanoi, Vietnam _OR_ The Art of Crossing the Road in Hanoi

2001-03-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

This month I've been wandering around Vietnam - well up and down actually...

The road from Phnom Penh was very bad but once we crossed in Vietnam they were a lot better. Spent a couple of days in the Mekong Delta, a couple in Saigon (no-one there calls it Ho Chi Minh City) followed by a few days in the hills at Dalat, then bus to Nha-trang (next-the-sea), then Hoi-An (a quaint and sleepy french village [well it was 'til we arrived]), then Hue a large town with some wicked banana pancakes, a long overnight bus ride (16 hours) to Hanoi, 3 days out in the mountains of Halong Bay - I hope you are following all this - and then a train !!! (nearly as bumpy as the bus - but not quite) to Sapa in the far north for a wonderful week and now back in Hanoi. Incidentally, the North may have won the war in 1975 but you would never know it - the South is still much better off.

The Best Bits

I hardly know where to start.....

- Sapa - Originally built as a hill station and still no bigger than a village [and not many tourists !!]. High enough in the mountains (1650m) o have fantastic views of the valley and mountains beyond - the main features here are the rice terraces thousands of them carved from the hilside and the minority people (the name the locals give to the hill tribes; though yes they are very small in height as well) in their traditional dress (which most of them wear all the time - they have no other clothes). And what views from the hotel (see later). I spent 3 days trekking in the steep sided valley where the tribes live and farm those rice terraces - still ploughing the terraces with water buffalo (Oxen). Visted 5 tribes and stayed with 2 of them overnight. But don't drink the rice spirit - especially the sort that has had dead snakes and dead birds in it for a few months/years........ The other few days I just wandered around and sat on my balcony admiring the view.....Incidentally, due to microclimates created by the mountains the warmest and coldest places in Vietnam are up here and just a mountain ridge apart - it is just a little windy over that ridge ....

Halong Bay - Basically rocks sticking up out of the water - very beautiful especially in the mist. What can I say - you just had to be there..........

Mekong Delta - Stayed with a family for 1 night on a small island near Long Xuyen (I can't pronounce it either) where they have not allowed tourists to go before (communist countries and all that) so as soon as we walked / cycled down the street we were surrounded by 20 or thirty locals asking us questions - mostly in Vietnamese (and not asking for money!). The lack of tourism had a helping hand that evening when we wandered into a bar (it was basic but there was a tv on, a few people watching it and a few spare chairs and tables) and after some pointing eventually managed to get across to the owner that we wanted 7 beers (wouldn't have though it would be that difficult to order a drink !). He promptly got on his bike and cycled down the road and bought back some beers! Apparently it wasn't a bar after all - maybe just his front terrace ....... And we went to a real floating market where we were the only tourists (a change from Bangkok).

Dalat - A really offbeat french style chill out spot with a mad monk (who made us paint pictues (mine were awful - but he seem pleased!!)); a crazy lady who has built a small 'hotel' with the rooms inside concrete trees and surrounded by a couple of giraffe and giant spiders; a charming french poet who invited us into his cafe (it really was his front room) and insisted showing us all the articles that had been written about him in the international press (there were many)... And we trekked for 2 days in the jungle......fantastic !

Hoi-An - Delightful little place. It's sooooooooo french - but apart from that it's OK !

My Son - Not a genetic reference (I am more careful than that) but the centree of the Cham empire for 900 years. A very importtant site although thanks to the Americans during the war it is now not as impressive as it once was. When compared to Angkor, it bears some resemblence to a pile of bricks......

Beer - not a place but a drink. The local stuff (drinkable) here costs US10cents (UK 7p)for half a pint. It really is cheaper than the drinking water !!!!!! but you have to drink it in the street ..... not that it matters where you start, you will probably end up in the gutter....

The bad bits...

- Crossing the road in Saigon. Ther are 2 million motos (motorbikes) in Saigon and they are all out to get you (I mean me)!!!!! Actually the best way to cross the road is simply to not look and just walk slowly across and they will all drive round you and each other (in theory). Actually I didn't see any accidents in the south of Vietnam although in the north (where there are less motos) I have seen loads - several requiring an ambulance....

- Cheap CDs - Including all your favorites - they cost about US$0.8 each (less than 60p). Unfortunately they have tracks missing and those that are there often get stuck. They look pretty though ! (Someone told me thay might be pirates.....surely not..)

- Loudspeakers - If you thought that Government broadcasts across the whole country getting people to work harder, only have a max. of 2 children etc. only happened in '1984' then think again !!! 1 hour twice a day they blare out the good communism message. Fortunately the loadspeakers have been removed from most of the areas populated by tourists (so we won't know anything about it....)

- The one pillar pogoda - Possibly the most dissapointing tourist attraction since Copenhagen's little mermaid and that peeing boy in Brussels. 'Rabbit hutch on a stick' it should be called..... but then again it was built about 1000 years ago....Oh... no .. it was completely destroyed by the French (!)and they actually rebuilt it in concrete about 20 years ago....delightful!

- Getting dragged down some rapids (unintentionally) near Sapa and then dragged under by the current just as I was abut to hit a huge rock. It's like white water rafting all over again, but without the safety boats! Not recommended !

- Saying 'Hello' - (This represents half my Vietnamese volcabulary). I had been using this phrase for a couple of weeks, much to the amusment of some Vietnamese, when I was told that tones are very important in Vietnamese and that the 2nd half of the phrase (sin jhow) needs to be pronouned with a falling tone. I think that I was pronouncing it with a rising tone .... meaning 'rice soup '!!!!! No wonder they laughed!

That's enough of Vietnam for me, now I'm off on a 24 hour bus ride from Hanoi to Vientiane in Lao (where the roads are worse (?) than Cambodia's).However, I will remember the views of Sapa from my hotel balcony for a long time....(like Swizerland only with rice terraces)...'...below me the rugged hills are covered with pine forests and dotted with 'chalets', supported by stacks of almost endless layers of rice terraces carved into the landscape in sweeping geometric patterns. Opposite a thin layer of cloud slides silently down the valley gently dusting each hilltop. Above the cloud a dark mountain ridge dominates the valley silhouetted against a blue sky sprinkled with white and black clouds calmly reddening in the setting sun and yet cooled by the chill of the mountain air.....Well that's enough of that poetic stuff .. I'm off to read Homer's 'Odyssey' and 'The Iliad'...........

By the way Vietnam was great !

LuvPete

Where 5 Phnom Penh, Cambodia --OR-- Wat No Angkor

2001-03-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

Since last email (Hong Kong) I have moved to hotter and much cheaper
countries - both good news - however there are some downsides..... I spent
a couple of weeks in Bangkok (which was far too long but I had to sort out
visas for Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos) and then travelled by bus to Cambodia,
first to Siem Reap to see the temples at Angkor and then by boat to Phnom
Penh......

The good bits
- The temples at Angkor are incredible, of excellent quality and varied in style. Built by the
Khmer people as their capital city from 9th - 14th century only the temples
remain (only gods could live in stone buildings (temples) so all other
buildings were wooden and have long gone).
The crowning glory is Angkor Wat (the outline of the central towers appears
on the Cambodian flag [with which you are all no doubt familiar : )) ]which
is an incredible building (built 1113 - 1150 AD). It is surronded by a moat
200m wide and 5.5km long; the central building contains 3 levels and 1200sq
metres of stone carvings depicting legends and stories of the time. It is
in almost perfect condition despite the years and wars which have ravaged
the coutry. Said by some to be the greatest building ever conceived by the
human mind - the scale is awesome and the balance is perfect - it flows with the surrounding jungle... inspirational.
Definitely worth 3 days of my time and undoubtedly a highlight of the whole
trip.

- The Royal Palace in Bangkok - choc full of ornate and colourful temples,
chedis and monsters (guarding it all).
- Lying down buddha 46m long with feet 3m by 5m - and it was probably solid
gold .... or maybe it was painted gold .... or maybe you see so many gold
buddhas that after a while it doesn't really matter..... interestingly the
most sacred buddah in the whole of Thailand (in Royal Palace) in only about
1m tall - Even in Bangkok size isn't everything !!
- Talking to some monks at a temple in Bangkok about how they live their
life and ending up talking about Premiership football - thankfully none of
them supported ManU...
- The other travellers I have met - sometimes insane but always interesting
....... (like the Irish farmer who has been travelling for 4.5 years in an
effort to take a picture of his son's rabbit outside each of the famous
sights in the world before his son graduates from college ..... he claims to
have visited over 150 countries..)

The bad bits
- traffic in Bangkok is simply a nightmare - just trying to cross the main
roads is enough to have you certified insane and takes 10 mins - it's
quicker to take a taxi just to cross !! And Phnom Penh is nearly as bad -
few cars but an incredible no. of scooters/motorbikes. Incidentally
Cambodia is the 12th country I have been to this trip but the first place
where they drive on the right ..... not that you would notice !!
- Bangkok is just not a nice place!
- The number of cockroaches in my room. The Thai's get there own back by
frying and eating them.... no I didn't !
- The seedy side is alive and kicking - well I had to make sure it was still
there - girls wandering around in their 'night attire' entertaining the guys
(you really can do that with a string of razor blades)...and on a personal
level...No I didn't !
- Cock fighting - actually I meant the animals - possibly legal and
certainly common - but not very pleasant.
- The roads in Cambodia - they have no roads just dirt tracks with huge
holes in them - it took over 7 hours to go 152km - and it was not
comfortable !!!

The other bits
- The Killing Fields - A mass grave and a monument to the 1 million Cambodians murdered by Khmer Rouge (their own people) 1975-9 made of human skulls (they had a lot of them lying around...)
- S-21 A former school where the Khmer Rouge tortured thousands of people
before killing all but about 7 of them. Perfectly preserved (down to the 'tools' used) it
looks like it could have been used the day before I visited - a disturbing
place made worse by the pictures on the walls of each of the (short term)
occupants - men, women and children....

Next ... Out of here (on a terrible road) to Vietnam and HoChiMin City
(Saigon) ....

For those in UK, I hope the weather isn't getting you down in the foot and mouth too much.

Best Wishes
LuvPete

Where 4 Hong Kong --OR-- Chinese New Year by mistake

2001-02-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys

Just a 'quick' message as it's not long since the last one - but I have
found an excellent free email here so I'm making the most of it.....

First of all Kung Hei Fat Choi (Happy Chinese New Year [24 Jan]) - I am
nearly fluent in Cantonese now - well fluent in 7 words...only about 10,000
to go.... not that I knew it was New Year, in fact I only found out it was on the plane from Cape Town... and I was horrified - I thought the place would be packed...

I was intending to spend only a week here but I had so much fun that I have
spent nearly 3 weeks - I am leaving tomorrow for Bangkok - although I was
thinking of going to Bejing instead but it is very cold (-14C) there at the
moment so I'll have to do that another time....
It's not exactly warm here though - foggy and 15C ... I'm told that's about
as cold as it gets. Can't be much colder than that in UK.....

Since I've been here I 've also been to Macau (a Portuguese enclave until it
was handed back to China in Dec 1999) which is only 65km away by boat -
apart from that I have stayed put - strange not having a truck to take me
places.......

Plus Points
- Victoria Peak - the view of HK at night is superb. We got a slightly
better view by climbing up onto a higher part of the viewing roof than we
were 'probably' supposed to and then when security came round to lock up at
midnight we were still there - and so got locked out !!! Luckily they came
and unlocked us after 20 mins or so...

- New Year's Eve Flower Market - It's not just flowers but all sorts of
trees and total tat...... the locals ALL buy them as good luck for the new
year.... but it is total mayhem ! It's like Xmas shopping in Oxford Street
but with everyone waiting until Xmas Eve to buy their presents....and if you
thought that we buy tat at Xmas you should see the total c*** they buy -
basically any piece of plastic, cloth or wood that will bring them good
luck. You wouldn't catch me wasting my money on stuff like that....

- OK ... so I did buy one bit - it was the atmosphere ..... A small banner
saying (in Cantonese) 'Without Work you will have Money'. It seemed
appropriate. And then half an hour later I found HK$5 on the ground (about
50p)..... unfortunately the banner cost me HK$10 so it still has a bit of
work to do.......

- Partying on New Years Eve in a heap of clubs with all sorts of tabs going down.... until we got thrown out of the last one as it closed at about 11.30am next morning...

- The islands around HK are really nice - lots of mountains (up to 1000m)
and stuff like grass and trees which you just don't get elsewhere in HK.

- Macau - Very interesting place with loads of history, castles, temples,
views etc ... and loads of casinos ...no I didn't gamble everything away....
I was however just about the only (caucasian) tourist there - during my
day and a half there I saw no other !

- Visiting the largest Buddha (that is largest outdoor sitting bronze Buddah...) in
the world on a nearby island (22m high).

- Visit to 10,000 Buddhas Monastery - Actually there were 11,800 (so I was
told)- it seems good value to be able to worship all of them at once - a
whole lifetime of religion in one visit!!!!

- Daoism - what seems to be a really promising religion .... seemingly based
around 'Do nothing and something will happen'. I'm sure that must have been
what we practiced at NatWest....

Minus Points

- The backpacker accommodation is abysmal and not desperately cheap - but I
did manage to find a dorm that was at least clean and rat free - the
corridors outside were neither .... there are so many cats you think there
would be no rats... but there again the rats are bigger than the cats so
perhaps that explains it...

- The number of people on the streets of HK. At weekends just walking along
the street was like endlessly queuing for nothing in particular ......

- New years Eve fireworks in the harbour - the cloud was so low that most of
the fireworks whooooossssssed up into the cloud not to be seen again
(although we did here the BANGS!)

- The night markets - teeming with people, so lively, the real ambiance of
HK - So why do they all sell total c***.

- Guys on the street with never ending offers of a new suit ! Do I look
like I need a new suit.... well ..... maybe ..... but then it just
wouldn't match my rucksack !

- Not understanding the language - outside the posher end of the tourist
sector hardly anyone speaks any English - so if you want a cheap meal (there
are no english menus in the cheap places) - you have to guess and point.
I've eaten loadsa Chinese food ... but I haven't got a clue what !!

- In Macau it seems compulsory for all the locals to ride a scooter around
like complete nutcases - the cars are bad in HK ... the cars are worse in
Macau, but the scooters are in Macau are the limit - I only saw I accident
while I was there.......

Anyway enough of that...

I hope you are all well and enjoyed England's thrashing of Wales at rugby -
I watched it live here (starting at midnight)... not such a big planet after
all.....

Best Wishes
Pete

Where 3 Cape Town, South Africa

2001-01-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

HI All

At Vic Falls we picked up some more people - and lost some really good ones (I have to say that because they might be home now and reading this)....

We travelled into Botswana (rich country due to all their diamond deposits) to Chobe national park then Maun and then flew by light aircraft into the Okavango delta (one of the few inland deltas in the world - all the water evaporates !) where we camped for a couple of nights in the middle of nowhere. We came out of the delta on Xmas eve by speedboat and spent Xmas day at Sepupa Swamp Stop - Xmas day was blisteringly hot - we all had presents (sweets and a 'secret santa' - it's amazing what you can get for US$5).
Then to Namibia - fantastic country (my favorite in Africa) despite most of it being desert - it really is interesting honest ! Oh and hot - about 40C but very dry so the heat was bearable.
Toured round various parts of the desert and spent NewYears Eve at a massive rave in the dunes......then Etosha national park where it hasn't rained for a year and the animals have to come to the waterholes to drink - so we saw loadsa animals. Then South all the way down to South Africa, Cape of Good Hope, Penguins and Cape Town - a wonderful city.

High Points
- Watching the elephants play in the water at Chobe - they formed a line of 5 just like they were in the circus and waded in...
- Morongo trips in Okavango delta (dug out canoes for 2 people plus a poler) we went for hours through the narrow channels surrounded by water lillies and the occasional hippos and antelope.Idyllic.
- Sitting on an osterich in Namibia - a tad unstable (there is no saddle) and all you can grab onto is it's neck - though not very tightly !!!!
- Windhoek - capital of Namibia - an ultra modern and very pleasant relaxing city in the middle of the desert (like Adelaide apparently) - shoppping heaven for those that way inclined!
- New Years Eve Party in the dunes - about 5,000 people, 2 sound stages (main one rave, the other everything else) - absolutely amazing.........
- Sandboarding down the dunes - if it sounds like you just walk up a dune with a 2m x 1m piece of plywood, lie down and launch yourself down the steep side then your very close - just add a crash helmet and elbow pads and you can get up to 80kmh, then add a jump at the bottom and hold on f***ing tight - pure insanity.
- Quad Biking in the dunes - believe it or not you can go almost vertically up a sandune on a quadbike (160cc) if you get a bit of speed up....but then you have to go almost vertically down again - very similar type of insanity to sandboarding - 35km of great fun - almost continuous adrenalin rush especially as I/we were all just out of control almost all the time!
- Rock painting that are about 6,000 years old - Oh yes ... of COURSE this is a cultural trip ??
- Welwitschia plants - these can be up to 2,000 years old although the ones we saw were only approx. 300 years old. They grow at 1mm p.a. and only have 2 leaves but because of the wind and desert conditions they leaves are very tatty and they look like large lettuces that are passed their sell by date !!!!
- Sitting with 3 semi-tame cheethas at a cheetah reserve. You can stroke them if you are very careful and one of the handlers is keeping it calm - but then they wandered around us and nobody moved an inch in case we scared them(!) - they are beautiful animals but they have very big and sharp teeth (we were so exhilarated/scared stiff by them) - more dangerous than sandboarding but even more memorable!!
- sitting next to the waterholes in Etosha NP. Herds of elephant, giraffe, zebra, springbok(crashes of) black rhino and (prides of) lion all came to drink at the various holes we watched. Saw 15 lions in 1.5 days.
- Sunrise over the dunes (had to get up at 4.15am though and clamber up a large dune - worse than working for a living!!)
- Kolmanskop ghost town - no ghosts but an ex-diamond mining town which was abandoned in the 50's and the wooden houses have filled up with sand - weird.
- Fish River Canyon - 161km long, 27km wide (at widest) and 550m deep - all carved out by water - although for most of the year the river is dry ! Very spectacular.
- Robben Island off Cape Town - where Nelson Mandela (and most of the current SA cabinet) were imprisoned from 1964 until mid 80's (released from another prision in 1990 and became president in 94). The cells were only 2m x 2m and they were kept there 23.5 hours a day (then instead they volunteered to do hard labour just so they could get out a bit). A monument to the struggle against apartheid - very moving. Much respect to them for spending the best years of their life in such conditions and then not seeking reprisals once they got into power.
- Going up Table Mountain for sunset and then watching the lights of Cape Town twinkling goodbye on my last night in Africa beautiful - what a way to finish what was a fantastic trip of 12,000km by road through Africa.

Low Points
- Fishing on Xmas Day which was great except that we saw more hippos than fish and caught the same no of each - i.e. none.
- Getting up at 4-15am to watch sunrise over dunes, walking up a large dune in the dark only to find that my camera was (permanently) buggered! (Sand from NYE party had worked it's way in!). Just bought new camera in HK.
- The sea in Namibia (which is within the tropics) was colder than winter in Brighton !! due to cold currents from the Antarctic).
- drinking the water in Okavango delta - it was chewy, dark brown and YUK! but that was all we had for 3 days.
- Smell of Cape Cross Seal (lion) Colony - can't think of anything to compare it to - it was that bad.
- Meeting some intelligent white (Afrikaans) people in Namibia who were so racist (and claimed to base their beliefs on the bible) - basically white man was made by god whilst black man descended from chimpanzese - incredible that such beliefs persist.

And that was wot I saw in Africa. (if you read it all - well done, if you didn't then I can't blame you!) - let me know if you want to stop receiving these junk emails and I will take you off the list.

What did you get for Xmas (more than me I guess !!!!)

Now I'm heading for Hong Kong...

Luv Pete

WHERE 2 - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

2000-12-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

Since I last wrote in Zanzibar we have done heaps!!

We spent 4 nights in Zanzibar, 2 at the beach which was absolute paradise - white sand, perfect sea, beautiful weather etc...

We then got a boat back to Dar and drove all the way to Malawi where we spent 6 nights camping at 3 different beaches on the lake (3rd largest in Africa). From there we drove via Lilongwe (capital) into Zambia and into Zimbabwe at Kariba to spend 2 nights on house boats (luxury in comparison - hot showers and a bed and a cook!) on Lake Kariba. Then back into Zambia to Livingstone (one side of Victoria Falls) and then into Zimbabwe again to the town of Victoria Falls where we have just spent 3 nights. Today we are going to Botswana...

Highlights for last 3 weeks
- Going through the border into Tanzania and teh official not asking me for the usual US$55 fee for a visa - looking at the monet being thrown in a drawer, I figured it was all a big scam anyway so I hung onto the cash - everyone else in the party paid. Then about 10km down the road, just as I was revealing my good fortune to my truck-mates, we were chased and caught by a car with a man leaning out of it waving a bit of paper at us who we recognised as the official at the border. Heart in my mouth and my $55 at the ready we slowed and stopped as he approached our driver and said 'You forgot yoru receipt'. It was made out in full for the whole group as if everyone had paid and oddly enough it was made out in my name! So I did pay and I have the piece of paper to prove it!

- The pure white sand beach in Zanzibar - absolutely perfect.

- Changing money at the border between Tanzania and Malawi. I got the job of changing the money for the whole 20 of us. It was mayhem - everyoneof the crowd of local dealers surrounded me trying to push wads of money into my handsand at the same timeall trying to rip me off by giving me a crap rate (so I held an auction from the safety of the truck for the best rate), short changing me , giving me old notes (we had no idea which ones were valid), saying they had no change in small notes once they had counted out the bulk of the notes etc. etc. After counting and recounting several times we finally handed over our cash and we succeeded - they didnt rip us off - must have been all those years of bank training!

- Snorkelling off Kande beach in Lake Malawi - there were so many fish and so many different types. Apparenty 80% of freshwater aquarium fish come from Lake Malawi.

- 2 days of luxury and excellent food surrounded by hippos and crocodiles on Lake Kariba.

- White water rafting down the Zambezi - rapids 4 to 19 over a distance of 25km.We flipped our raft over twice and were just a bit(?) scaredbut we survived unhurt - although a few of us managed to lower the level of the river by drinking huge amounts of it.

- Victoria Falls. Despite this being low water time of year it was still an immense amount of water falling over 100m.

- and surprisingly after driving for 2 long days through Zambia where we hardly saw another person or vehicle on the Trans Africa Highway we hit the outskirts of the scruffy capital Lusaka and suddenly came across the most modern shopping centre ever. Paradise. It was unreal.

Low Points
- Being ill for about a week - but I am fully recovered now.

- Forgetting that my watch was no longer waterproof and wearing it in the sea in Zanzibar. I bought a new Casio for £25 at that shopping centre in Zambia.

It doesnt seem like Xmas here. in fact I forgot it was December until I saw a shop assistant wearing a Happy Xmas hat. Despite moving on to areas where there are more Christians and less muslims there are very few Xmas decorations (but there are a few Xmas trees).

Happy Xmas and New Year to You All - Did I mention how hot it is here...?

Best Wishes
Luv
Pete