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October 8, 2008, Bali, Indonesia - Pssha, I wish! I'm still in stormy, cold Washington State. Sometimes I honestly believe this place is suffering from continental drift at an accelerated pace, and is just a few miles south of Alaska, the way the seasons manifest. So? So, nothing. But reminiscing about tropical locales reminds me that I have uploaded even more video to my website. This is a Video file that takes all of my best pictures from the last six months, puts them to music and they appear as a slide show right in front of your face. This means no clicking, moving or even thinking for you. If you didn't follow along at the time, or even if you did, now you can view all of my best shots in one video clip. The way to do it is two-fold. Go to my photo page and scroll down to videos and under 2008 you will see Picture DVD presentation. You can right click and save the file to downlaod it (better quality) and then play it on the media player of your choice, OR you can click the video clips to watch the segments on youtube (lower quality). Either way, enjoy viewing the culmination of my journey around the world.
October 2, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Technology has gotten the better of me. I have uploaded even more stunningly awesome videos to the bottom of the photo page. This one is a two-part movie of all the video I took while on my most recent trip. Two problems: the files are enormous and even so they appear small when you click the links. There is no way to make them smaller-sized without comprimising the quality so they will stay how there are. However, the way to battle against the small appearance of the videos is to right-click them and save them to your computer rather than click them directly. That way you can watch them on any player that plays MPEG files - the player can be resized. I know this is all really exciting so I promise not to bore you with any more technical jargon on this site. Enjoy the videos, if you can figure out how.
September 30, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Website update: It's videos aplenty.I've uploaded three videos from my past travel experiences that I think are worth watching. The first is a video project I made from the best pictures I took when in Brazil in 2005. It's set to music and good family fun. Takes about 18 mintues. To watch it, go to my photos page and scroll down to the bottom to the video section. Under 2006 you will find the Brazil Video Presentation. You can watch either the small verion or the high-quality. Either will take a little time to download. While there you will notice another presentation just below it: the South and Central American Video Presentation. That is the second half of my best pictures from my trip to Latin America in 2005-2006. So check it out. Finally, I uploaded the full, high-quality version of my Alaska video from last time. It's much nicer in hi-def so that is another addition to the site. Enjoy.
September 15, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Recently, I have gone back to find some of my old travel pictures, ahhh, to relive the fine memories and to digitize the thousands of prints I have gathering dust in my closet. I found quite a few new pictures from an around-the-world trip I took back in 2001-2002. I scanned these 35mm prints and added them to such albums as Turkey, India and Europe Summer 2001. Even more obsessively, I found pictures I took about a decade ago, from my first trip to Europe, a couple of visits to Morocco and a volunteer trip I took to Ecuador in 1998, and made albums out of those. You read that right: three new albums. You may notice that, back in this period, I suffered from a very young traveler's eye and deplorable photgraphy equipment, but I still think these pictures are site-worthy. You can find them near the bottom of my photo page under the years 1999 and 1998. Enjoy.
September 9, 2008 - More from the archives:
Way back in May I was making my way through Eastern Europe at breakneck speed, unaware of anything other than that I wanted to make it to a wedding in Bucharest, Romania a few short weeks after departing from Russia via Finland. Along the way I did my best to educate myself on such topics as the eternal Latvian struggle for independence, contemporary Slavic language, post-WWII history and the name for 'sausages' in every Eastern European country (so I could avoid them). However, my speed and fatigue soon intermingled, producing a glossy, almost irreverent coating over my corneas - cultural cataracts, if you will. There was only so much I could take in on minimal sleep on night buses and spending only one or two days in a city. This is a conundrum for nearly every traveler: whether to see and experience as much as possible, while only getting a brief view of everything, or to fixate on only a few places to know them well, thereby missing out on everything else. I tend to opt for the former, yearning for a small taste of as much as possible and stopping for longer only if I am undeniably intrigued.
In Eastern Europe I practiced this travel creed unapologetically as I headed to my destination in Romania. Consequently, I missed out on a few opportunities I wish I could have again. And someday I may. One of my regrets was not spending enough time in the former states of the Yugoslav republic. I did visit Serbia and I was massively fascinated. However, I regrettably missed up-and-coming Sarajevo in Bosnia. Serbia quickly grew on me for several reasons - none of which are worth mentioning here. But what really began to catch my interest in the former socialist republic was the incredible ethnic and geographical history. The more I read the more shocked I became at the contemporary political situation in Yugoslavia that led to its breakup, ethnic cleansing and massive civil war. Not having been in Europe in the early 90s nor interested in international politics at that stage in my life, I couldn't grasp precisely which conditions had played the major role in the disintigraion of this formerly successful state.
One day the point was driven home clearly to me, as a walked in a park overlooking the Danube River and the city of Belgrade. Minding my own business my eyes wandered to a cart that was selling old Yugoslavian bills (dinars). These bills were long since outdated but were now collectors items because Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 1992. The lady at the stand was selling bills in incredibly large denominations and this sunny day she did not seem to be seeing much business. I decided to go over and have a look. In broken English she told me about the breakup of the republic and how she came across the money. I was learning. Apparently, many times just before a country splinters or disintegrates their economy goes down in flames, just as everything else does. Inflation then runs rampant and many citizens are unable to support themselves or even buy the food they need to survive. It's not easy to cure hyperinflation, It takes decades sometimes. Some countries have gone as far as to save resources by not painting the back of their newly produced, larger denomination bills. Another quick fix government solution is to simply print more money. If the value of the currency is dropping then putting more money into the hands of the everyday consumer is the obvious choice, right? Wrong. The hyperinflation is exacerbated by an influx in currency, which in turn devalues the currency more. This continuously perpetuating inflation situation is exactly what was faced in Yugoslavia as it was apparent that its states were breaking away from Serbia. Currency devalued to such an extent that Milosovic and his cronies began to print ridiculously high denomination notes to appease the situation.
Well, just as prescribed, the currency devalued further. So even larger bills were produced. That is where we get the bill that you see below, the 50 billion dinar bill, worth nothing at the time and even less now. Fifty billion: that is nine zeros.
The lady at the stand in the park alerted me, in her raspy, almost unintelligible accent that she was selling such a bill for about 2 dollars - although she had a 500 billion dinar bill for only a few dollars more. As a novice money collector I felt that I could not pass this opportunity up. I purchased the bill and made a little chit chat with her.
She seemed nice enough but quite old and weathered - an obvious product of the tough and lean transitional years the country had faced during the endless decades of war in the 20th century. I wondered what she thought of me, a rich consumer, able to toss around hard currency on a whim. I felt a little guilty and decided to leave.
As I walked out of the park I heard the old vendor screech one final sentence to me: "Goodbye, r-r-rich man." At first I did not turn, but rather kept walking, paranoid that her comment was a mocking reference to my frivolous westernized spending habits and seemingly unlimited capital. But suddenly I realized her comment was a perfect humorous satire of her own country's financial downfall. She had facetiously called me rich as I walked away with a bill worth 50 billion nothings. I found her sense of humor refreshing and inspiring, considering the difficulties she had faced in her lifetime.
Money in my bank
August 15, 2008 - A little tidbit from the archives:
June 18, 2008, Santarcangelo, Italy - This is a breakfast fit for a king.
Indeed, I felt like royalty. Indeed. After an evening of drinking spumante with a man called Conte (count) Guidi, who invited us into his hand-restored castle from the 1100s, I awoke to this spread. In the tiny hilltop settlement of Petrella Guidi, capped by a 12th century medeival castle and named after the family of this count and nobleman, who were the town?s founders and have been the area?s benefactors for 900 years, I spent the night in a nearby stone home dating from the same era.
The spread was provided by the home?s caretaker and just scratches the surface of some of the Italian delicacies I was introduced to during my 5 days in the Italian region of Romagna.
The meal began with a crostatina, a type of cake with a delicate consistancy and a rich cream base, called crema della nonna (grandma?s cream). In a circular pan on the table sat a simple but filling dish, similar to a souffle, called bustrengo, which was made with a mixture of egg, flour and sugar. This dish, native to the region, is old fare typical in a working class breakfast. Its taste was enlivened by a sweet, homemade fig jam. In another pan sat a dish similar to an omelette, made with eggs and cheese, with a medley of vegetables cooked in: tomatoes, peppers, onions, zuchini. Tasty. A plate of various-shaped stuffed pastries, called tigella sacotini, also native to the region, sat temptingly close to my plate. The thin, flaky crusts were filled with several different savory delights. Some had a creamy mixture of a cheese similar to ricotta; others were stuffed with proscuitto, herbs, and cheese. The exciting flavors of the tigella were enhanced further by a sampling of local homemade jams and dipped in Romagna produced honey. At this point, not normally a breakfast eater, I was already well-full. But there was more. A cream-based cake, torta della nonna, loomed large on the table and I felt it was my duty to consume it. The cascade of sweet and savory continued with slices of rock melon (cantaloupe) and proscuitto. All was finished off with a flowery-scented tea. This ends my report on just one belt-busting meal in one day in Italy. But rest assured this was by no means an isolated culinary experience. I was showered with gourmet local liquors, wines, beers, food - from sinfully creamy gelatto to homemade pastas - and kind hospitality throughout my time in Italy. Any weight I may have lost riding across Siberia on a diet of water and instant noodles has been gained back - and then some. And I don?t regret a morsel of it.
August 13, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - Imagine that. It only took me 5 weeks to post the rest of my photos and video from the remainder of my trip, once I arrived back in Washington State. They are all up now - the pictures, the video, the photojournalism. Revisit the past or enjoy some of the new stuff. Anything to tide you over until I can get some more writing up on the site. Mark my word, it will happen. What I've added today are an album of pictures from my time in Italy, along with all my videos from Western Europe. All the videos have to do with Bavarian dancing or soccer celebrating. But what is wrong with that anyway? Not much I say. Enjoy if ye dare.
August 5, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - Pictures from Germany are now available for your eyeballs.
August 3, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - Wow, sorry about the lull. My brother got married so I was busy acting like I had a purpose in life. In the mean time I am finally catching up with some of my photography. Pictures of Serbia and Romania have been posted. Pictures from almost two months ago but new pictures as far as the interweb is concerned. Enjoy. More soon.
July 2, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - I have returned to the good 'ol' US of A, via Paris, Dublin, New York, and Seattle. Due to my rigorous schedule of rapid travel through western Europe and extreme socializing in New York, I've skipped a whole bunch of things I wanted to write about on this homepage, concerning Europe, and I still owe a massive amount of pictures and videos to put the finishing explanatory touches on the remainder of my trip. These will be forthcoming in the next few weeks. I just need some time to adjust back into the supersized life and culture that is the US. I should have some new stuff up by this weekend.
June 23, 2008, Stuttgart, Germany - Why am I still in Germany? My plane leaves from paris in 12 hours. The Euro 2008 soccer championship is in full force in this area. Funny how I keep finding myself in these locations during crazy important games. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway, only videos can describe what has been happening here in Germany over the last week, so here is a teaser. Next week I will try to get online and put up some fresh photos and video.
June 18, 2008, Ravensburg, Germany - Unfortunately, the end is in sight. Fortunately, as Patrick Swayze once sang, I?ve had the time of my life. Prove it? Okay, prepare yourself for a scene straight out of National Lampoon?s European Vacation, minus the Chevy Chase headbutts, sadly:
June 9, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia - I just can't stay out of these war-torn countries. They keep calling me back. Actually, the real reason I am back in Belgrade is because the transportation gods have brought me here. In order to get up to Croatia and Slovenia and to sneak into the back of Italy's giant boot I figured I needed to go through one of the transportation hubs of the area. So I grabbed a painfully slow overnight train from Romania into Serbia. From there I wanted to get down to Sarajevo, the most recently demolished, war-torn and exciting capital city of the former Yugoslav repulblics, complete with pock-marked streets from a massive bombing campaign and 4 year seige. Alas, lack of time and decent transportation connections are preventing me from accomplishing my goal of seeing Bosnia in all its adolescent glory. Ya know, if there is one theme that has reemerged time and time again on my travels this year it is the dark and scary concept of war and its painful manifestation in society. From the city of Darwin, Australia, which was destroyed by Japanese bombers in WWII, to Vietnam, whose entire history is that of warfare with China, its surrounding neighbors, and more recently, itself, to China, whose ancient empires have an extremely violent past, to Russia, whose warfare in the 20th cetntury alone is as bloody and red as its flag, to the Baltics, who lost sginificant portions of their population in WWII, to Warsaw, Poland, which was ground zero in WWII and was 83% bombed to oblivion by the Nazis and Russians, to the Balkans, who have had internal struggles as recently as the late 1990s, and have always been the territory of whichever violent empire was controling their fate throughout history, the concept of warfare keeps reappearing on my travel plate and is often served up painfully raw. Everywhere I've been there is a terrible history of human conflict that mars the memories of the populace or scars the facades of the buildings.
Overseen
in Belgrade: What else, other than a 78-day NATO bombing campaign
causes relatively new structures, such as this one, to crumble into
pieces?
The graphic displays in museums throughout Europe are stark
reminders of the evil that humanity is capable of unleashing on itself,
and even though it is uncomforatable to do so, I ALWAYS keep an eye out
for horrific war footage and battle scars when I am in an area that has
been defined by recent violence. To me this serves as a powerful
reminder that war is NEVER the answer. Most of the Europeans seemed to
have learned this lesson in WWII, after suffering such heavy losses,
and even today many countries' international policy is constructed in a
non-aggressive manner. It seems like nobody wants warfare as a solution
once they have seen it up close. In the US, however, not having had
such epic destruction to our major cities so recently as part of a war,
I think some of us forget how tragic it truly is. When we decide who
our leaders are, as we are going to be doing this November, I think
it's very important to look at who we are selecting, and that we don't
choose people who are warmongering aggressors. It sounds simple enough
but obviously we didn't make a choice for peace over the last 8 years.
And many lives have been lost because of it. It is unfortunate that the
lessons of war (that it is wrong in nearly every case) must be learned
time and time again. It seems like each generation has to relearn the
painful lessons first hand. It would be a much better world if the
older generations, the ones who have been so damaged by warfare around
the world, could make sure the younger generations don't fall into the
same trap. Eastern Europe has taught me the lesson over and over and I
just wish that everybody would have the chance to see the atrocities of
war first hand, in order to gravitate towards more peaceful and
diplomatic solutions to our alleged problems. Make love, not war, man.
Overseen
in Belgrade: And if anybody knows what causes pock-marks in cement like
this, other than mortar rounds and machine gun bullets, please let me
know.
June 5, 2008, Brasov, Transylvania, Romania (insert evil-sounding laugh) - No news is good news, right? Well, if that is the case then I have some good news: there is no news. I am in Dracula country biding my time until the wedding this weekend and exploring the 15th century gothic towns of central Romania. Good times. A few more sun- and rain-drenched days in Eastern Europe and that will be it for me - heading West for the journey home. Boo hoo.
June 2, 2008, Varna, Bulgaria - Wow, that was a long journey. The last stop of any length I had was back in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, so many thousands of miles ago. Now I am deeply entrenched in Europe and battling to stay afloat amid a still plummeting dollar and the high prices of the first-world. I have resorted to my time-tested travel methods of European travels past - cash-saving methods I hoped I would never have to use again. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Since accomodation and transportation are my two biggest costs, I have been combining them and taking either a night bus or night train from one city, arriving between four and six a.m. in another, walking around the city homeless for an entire day, taking in as many sights as possible during the long mid-summer days, then heading out on another night bus or train. I had a streak of six nights in a row where I used this mind-fatiguing technique, followed by six days of zombified adventuring in the streets of countries' capitals. In some of the more ridiculously priced cities I forced myself to develop an even dirtier tactic of saving money (for instance, Helsinki was almost 40 dollars a night for a dormitory-style hostel): I leave my bag at a train station upon arrival and instead of checking into a hostel, just going to a 24-hour internet cafe and waiting out my time from 1-6am or so, paying whatever they charge to use the internet in the middle of the night (usually about a dollar an hour) and just skipping a night of sleep now and again. I've only had to resort to this tactic when there are no night buses to my next destination and the hostel prices are truly outrageous. To get down to southeast Europe the transportation connections have been farily good so I have mostly ridden through the night, rarely even awoken by guards at the border to stamp my passport.
After the Baltics I spent enough time in Poland to pour a bowl of
borscht over my head. Then I made the financially painful mistake of
testing the waters on the Western side of the Danube, sticking my foot
into west Europe and Vienna, Austria for a day. The waters burnt...up
my cash. But strangely I started to feel more at home. Even amidst the
pretentious, flamboyant architecture of the Hapsburgs. 
I knew I was back in true Europe when I started spotting the ostentatious artwork of the west.
Anyway, I am not travel-fatigued any longer. I am only bothered by mere 'regular' fatigue, which I can handle. I have found the cure though: The Black Sea Coast. I am here for the next few days, resorting it with a high school friend, Joe Wilcox, who will be getting married in Bucharest, Romania on Saturday. You can't spell Bucharest without rest so I am taking this opportunity to get some R&R on the coast, attend the wedding, then sprint to the finish line in Paris in a few weeks.
I would say I have had great travel luck so far. I have had no major problems. Despite my rampant abuse of sleeping patterns there have been no mental errors resorting to muggings, pickpocketings, losing of passports, or the other silly mistakes that usually plague my journies. So far a lost wallet in Australia is the worst of my mishaps - and the finish line is in sight. This is still low season so the transportation connections have been excellent and uncrowded. I have had fortune with buses leaving to go where I want to go at decent times. I've scored discounts where available and the sailing has been relatively smooth since I hit Europe. But for the ease of travel I am paying dearly from the pocketbook. One example: some of the places I have traveled to have lived up to their reptutation as having 'beer that is cheaper than water.' It sounds like a real Shangri-la but the truth is that doesn't necessarily mean the beer is cheap. It means the water is expensive. At least on the dollar. And when you are visiting Giardia lamblia infested St. Petersburg you don't drink the water. So your choices are either to pay four dollars for a 2 liter of water or 2 dollars for 2 liters of 8% beer. In all seriousness, beer does not rehydrate so eventually one must break down and purchase some water - or risk giardia. I didn't take that risk, having had giardia in the past. Fortunately, since Russia, I have been living on local tap water in Eastern Europe. Surely my intakes and levels of tissue-damaging heavy metal have increased, but who doesn't need more heavy metal in their lives?
Announcements: Please see my newest writing, Trans-Siberiandipity, about my journey crossing Siberia on a train about three weeks back.
Also, I probably should have mentioned this a long time ago. In case you haven't figured this out yet, this site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Firefox opens my files with different formatting so I implore you to use IE on this site. Sorry to be a sellout. It's all I can do to even post pages in HTML. If you've come to this site often enough you've realized by now that web-savvy is not a description that fits me. All for now.
May 31, 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria - I have been riding hard to get to Southeast Europe. Hence the week of nothing on the site. Now I'm here and I love it, just like I knew I would. It's cheap, warm and full of nice folks. For the 14th time or so on this trip I am having to learn how to say 'hello' and 'thank you' in a new language. Then in two days time I will have to learn it in Romanian. Hello? Thank you.
Announcements: I have uploaded aplenty. There are two new albums of pictures (The Baltics and Finland; Poland, Austria, Slovakia) and two new video pages (Russia; Northeast Europe). The videos on the Russian page are long and boring - just like Russia! I recommend them. Also, I apologize for all the picutres of cathedrals and churches. I promise to physically harm myself next time I find myself taking pictures of the local church. Finally, please read my post from Serbia below about my hunting trip for the hard-to-find Yugo. That's all for now.
May 30, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia - Today I am in the former 'Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia' country of Serbia, in search of the the world's wildest and most elusive automobile species of all time, and the best thing that ever came out Yugoslavia, besides Drazen Petrovic, a species of automobile endearlingly called the 'Yugo.' In almost all other nations on earth the Yugo is presumed extinct, but here in the former Yugoslavian republic states it is still thought to exist. The Yugo began disappearing from its autobahn habitats around the time the Republic of Yugoslavia began disintigrating - in about 1991. Amid high political tensions within the country their (re)production slowed and their spread across the globe, once all but uncontrolled, nearly discontinued.
Now the Yugo is thought to be found only in its native habitiat and nearby areas, but rarely, if ever seen even there by the common man. In North America, I haven't seen one in years. It takes a specially trained pair of autoecologist' eyes to track one down. I am optimistic we can do so today. Any one we find will be a rusty and aging creature, likely born before 1991, and well beyond its best years.
The Yugo is a species like no other. Its habitat is that of a city dweller, although it is also sometimes spotted on the sides of rural roads. As a food source, it mostly consumes some sort of fuel native to Eastern Europe, a kerosene/gasoline hybrid scientists have yet to cultivate successfully in other countries. The Yugo is lightning quick and elusive to the naked eye, but it isn't nocturnal, because sightings have occured both at night and during the day.
I am hoping to spot one today to prove to the world that the once mighty Yugo does still exist and that it has not gone the way of less fortunate auto species such as the Rabbit and the Pinto, two unfortunate breeds who were confined to North America and who are now thought to be totally extinct in their native habitiats. Once the predominant species in Eastern Europe, the Yugo's territory spanned six continents, but sadly, the introduction and proliferation of other, non-native species, many of which outcompeted the Yugo in the auto habitat or 'market,' now confines its (re)production to areas such as inland Serbia, Bosnia, coastal Croatia, and small pockets or 'clusters' in Bulgaria. Sadly, the population has decreased so markedly in the last 15 years that this auto can only be seen in North America in car zoos or 'museums,' where the Yugo is clearly out of its natural environment and is tough to appreciate what it was in its former glory.
Oh my goodness! We are in luck today! There goes one now!
Wow, did you see how fast that went by? It takes a sharp
eye to get a good look at one of these guys. But I am quite sure that
was a Yugo. Now let's be real quiet and watchful. These guys sometimes
travel in packs or 'caravans.' Oh look! there's another!
You see there on the breast or 'hood' of this species,
there is a 'Y'-shaped pattern? That is the trademark characteristic of
this species. In order to verify a sighting of a Yugo, you absolutely
must ensure that the Y is visible. Otherwise you can't be sure it
wasn't a similar, but more common, non-native, introduced species. The
success of the Yugo was so marked, up through the late 1980s, that
other related species from the genus Compact,
those that looked and behaved similarly to the Yugo, shared the same
level of fitness with the species. Those autos that appeared the most
similar to a Yugo succeeded better than other species, therefore many
species evolved similar characteristics - a process scientists call
mimicry. However, this process, while flattering, is bad for the
success of a native species. Mimicry was one of the many factors that
contributed to the decline in the populations of Yugos around the
world, as its competetor species vied for a larger and larger share of
the resources or 'consumers.'
Now, look. You can see that the markings on this
individual just barely distinguish it from the Yugo, but the body
shape, color and size are almost identical to certain Yugo populations.
This is a clear case of mimicry by an imposter species, called a
Volkswagon, which is not endemic to this area. The Volkswagon is
considered noxious in Serbia, as an introduced or 'imported' species
that takes away the resources (consumers) from the Yugo. With no
(com)predator to control these pests, their numbers have skyrocketed
since the early 1990s, further sealing the fate of the Yugo. Some
invasive (imported) mimicry species to keep an eye out for are the
Fiat, the Volkswagen, which is a species introduced from Germany in the
late 1960s in a blown attempt at controling the proliferation of
another non-native species called the Ford, the Opel, and less commonly
seen, the Geo.
An invasive Fiat lurks in Yugo territory.
Nobody knows for sure, but it is believed by the prevailing Yugologists of our time, that the number of Yugos in the wild have dwindled to less than 1300 individuals. There are still many more found in captivity across the globe, but the Yugo is not able to be (re)produced in capitivity, so those held captive are older individuals and are becoming increasingly rare. The Yugo is considered extinct on five of the six continents it originally inhabited, now reduced only to its primary native breeding grounds in Southeast Europe. But even here it is considered highly endangered and with a high likelihood of permanent extinction within the next 10 years. Sadly, with the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 and the subsequent war between its former states, the government has been unable to do anything to protect the Yugo in its only remaining native territory. A lack of communication between the former Yugo states only exacerbates its problematic survival. NGOs have arrived here to try to save the species but many Yugologists believe that it is only a matter of time before the Yugo goes the way of the Edsel.
Reporting live from Belgrade, this is Tyson Volkmann.
Yugo, girl
May 25, 2008, Riga, Latvia - These little Connecticut-sized Baltic countries are great for country-hopping. I am making my way quickly. On another note, I am pleased to announce the release of my China Photojournal. It's been a long time in the making, but then again, so has China. Click here to check it out (it's a 10MB download so exercise some patience) or check the writing or photos page to have a look. I have also posted my dreadful pictures from Russia for your viewing pleasure. Gracias.
May 24, 2008, Tallinn, Estonia - I am Finnished with with Helsinki and the whole Scandanavian scene for now. If Moscow is the world's most expensive city then Helsinki is a close second. It's probably the cleanest as well. $$. That's why I have aready moved on and headed BACK TO THE U.S., BACK TO THE U.S., BACK TO THE (states that made up the former) U.S.S.R.! I don't know how lucky I are. It was a quick 1.5 hour ferry ride across the frigid Baltic Sea, from Helsinki to the capital of Estonia. It seems that in Europe and Asia the lower the latitude the lower the prices. So for the next phase of my voyage I am aiming as low as I can go without having to get more visas. I might bury myself as far Southeast in Europe as possible for the next few weeks (Bulgaria, anyone?) so I can save as much of my waning cash stash as possible before I head in to get scorched by Western European Euro prices. Then I will bolt west for my flight home. Yes, it?s a plan. For now, I will be going from the Baltics to the Balkans, and stopping a few places in between.
I think Estonia has breathed new life into me and cured my ?travel fatigue.? I had always been congnizent of this concept but never had a name for it until I ran across a Canadian dude, who coined it, at least for me. My travel fatigue was occuring because I was traveling such long distances in short times, without company, unable to speak the language or communicate in any form, struggling with the culture. Well, this experience is probably no different than in the majority of my travels but something about Russia put my travel fatigue at an all-time this-trip high for me, and the overly fancy streets of Helsinki did nothing to rememdy it. Wow, whining about traveling too much. I deserve a slap. Anyway, laid back Tallinn, Estonia has cured nearly all that ails me, save shin splints, financial woes and that freezing weather that comes with being this close to the Artic Circle. The old town has a beautifully preserved center with old city walls encasing gothic-style churches, filled with a population of city-slick Slavs who are fair skinned, charming and polite. Straight out of the Eastern European textbook this place is. But well-restored, independent, and not yet too touristy. At least not in May. Very peaceful and easy-going people. Wow, they are by the book here. The population doesn?t even jaywalk. I?ve seen cars and pedestrians, both stopped at an intersection for minutes, due to a malfunctioning light or something, waiting patiently, no honking, no illegal crossing, just waiting for the light to change. Eventually it does. And they finally cross. Meanwhile I?ve already scampered across the road like a stray dog minutes back and am probably already doing somethig else ?socially unsatisfactory? by the time they reach end of the crosswalk. When I jaywalk they look at me like I?ve committed a felony. Dude, I was hardened in the mean streets of ?nam, where dozens of times a day you risk your life crossing busy intersections. Where I come from, about 6 weeks ago by now, when there is a window of opportunity to cross the street, you best take it. Surely I will be ticketed.
Estonia. What a wonderful place. Here, let me show you:
As far as the website, (here we go again) I am through making ?more soon? promises because I haven?t run across an operating system later than Windows 98 for 3 weeks now. A USB slot is a figment of the future here. So, as far as pictures and writing go, om, more soon.
May 22, 2008, St. Petersburg, Russia - INTER-NYET
Much like in China, internet cafes all over Russia are dropping like flies. In this town of several million there is only one - there were three listed in my guidebook, researched just last summer, but two have closed for unknown reasons. That makes about eight in the whole country, so doing the quick math, there is one internet cafe every 2,134,425 square kilometers of territory here in Russia. No wonder they are so hard to find. Not sure what conspiracy is going on but I think Russia is extremely slow on the capitalist uptake. Not that I came to here to spend time playing on the web, but this is just an example of why Russia is a tough place for the independent traveler.
Oh yes, St. Petersburg: lovely, charming, all that. Especially touristy. Kind of like a mixture of Stockholm's stateliness with Venice's meandering canals. A far cry from what I expected, and an even further cry from Dostoyesvky's version in Crime and Punishment. Well, it has been 150 years since those days when the insects ruled the city's grimy, tiny, one-room, apartments described the way only he could. Maybe the internet will be here in 150 more. But it's a cool town. Cold, in fact. I am a little too far north and a little frozen at the moment. At least the sun doesn't really go down. So that's a plus.
Alas, I must leave Mother Russia. She's not my real mom. She's not even a step-mom. I wouldn't even accept here as a foster mom if I was Tiny Tim, truth be told. She just isn't right for me. Mostly because this country is just not set up for the independent backpacker scene yet. Therefore, the budgets run high and the deals low. There are only a handful of hostels in this country and they can get away with charging up to 60 bucks a head per night for a dormitory bunk bed. And I have to pay it. Ironically, as I watch the busloads of package tourists roll by I wonder if I could've experienced European Russia cheaper that way. Probably not, but the fact that I am even considering it makes me shudder. Everything else, such as food, is terribly expensive also, which is hard to understand, given Russia's small economic stature. I wonder how the people here afford anything. Cigarettes are cheap and there are a lot of smokesrs. The lines at McDonald's are particularly long, but they are in the US too. High costs affect Russians much more than me, of course, because I have the choice to move on and I made that choice by booking my train ticket to Helsinki, Finland, EU today (yeah, I know, Finland will be more expensive than here but it's the most convenient way out). I reckon I will head down through the Baltic states toward the Black sea, via Poland and Ukraine, where it should be confortably warm on the shores. One day, in the far future, when I am significantly older, wealthier, and have become senile enough to realize that I enjoy spending time in cities which lie under sheets of ice for 10 months of the year, I will return to this city and do it right.
As far as, "Why haven't you written anything or put any pictures up on your site for weeks, Tyson?" The answer is multi-layered. I have written lots but until I can find a reasonable internet machine I just can't do what needs to be done did to post anything. I've got a photojournal of China finished, a story from the Trans-Siberian train ride, and lotsa pics from Russia to upload but it will have to happen outside the womb of hapless Mother Russia. One thing I have found the means to do (Russia does have the program Windows Paint) is to update my maps as to where I am at (boooooooooooring!). But it's kinda interesting to see how far I've come overland in Asia. If you are into that sort of thing. I am.
May 21, 2008, Moscow, Russia - It's been said by some that 'the journey is the reward.' I've never quite understood what that means, but if the journey is the reward than I have just been richly rewarded. Because that was a MAJOR train journey across the continent of Asia and into Europe, from Eastern Siberia, I mean Mongolia, I mean Beijing, I mean Hanoi, to Moscow. And it's not nearly over. The minute I arrived in Moscow, at 4am this morning, I bought a ticket out of here, heading toward St. Petersburg. Besides the fact that this city is so expensive I can hardly afford to take a piss, there is a larger problem. An estimated 40,000 drunk Englishmen have flocked to and overrun the city in anticipation of the UEFA Champion's League Final, which features two top-ranked English Premier League teams. For those of you who don't know what this all means, it's basically the World Cup of soccer but for European club teams rather than national teams. It's the best of European club soccer teams and it's a one game winner-take-all final. Chelsea and Manchester United are here, along with their faithful fans. At first I was excited to be a part of it, and surely I will watch the game on some big screen somewhere, but every hostel bed in this city (they run about 40$ a pop for a dorm room anyway) has been reserved for weeks. I contemplated pulling an all-nighter in the streets of Moscow (it's light for about 19 hours a day anyway), claiming allegiance to whichever side wins and celebrating alongside them, but I think tonight will be cold and drunkenly violent in the street (if the lines of paddy wagons and riot police waiting for the post-game brawls posted up outside Red Square are any indication) so I decided to move on. Plus it's raining (in case you don't know me well, I consider rain to be about as much fun as cancer), which is why I'm inside typing rather than chanting soccer slogans with blue and red painted hooligans in the middle of Red Square right now. It's quite a spectacle, seeing football fans taking over and making a mockery of such a grand, historic area. But I saw that funny looking onion dome/Tetris castle building here (St. Basil's) and the Kremlin so I am satisfied to move on. Rome wasn't built in a day but I saw in one, at least the major sights. And I think I've seen enough here too. Plus umbrellas cost 22 dollars. St. Petersburg here I come. By the time you read this I will likely have crossed into the EU, into Finland. And soon I will have some more time to add some things to the website. Once the long 'journies' end, the 'rewards' will appear on the site.
Very truly unshowered for over a week yours, Tyson
from russia with love
May 17, 2008, Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia - Wow, time flies when Russian border authrorities search for stowaways aboard your train at the Mongolian border for 12 hours. Who would want to sneak into Siberia? When I first told my buddy Tyson Chase, over Christmas, that I was planning on visiting Russia he had one thing to say. "Russia is a dreadful place." Strong words from a strong man. I haven't been here long enough to know if those words ring true but I have already seen good and bad sides of this country emerging from its communist pupus. Judging from the prices versus my bank account (Moscow is somehow the world's most expensive city), I don't think I will be here long enough to experience the dread he felt playing baseball in the Eastern provinces of Russia in the mid '90s, but rest assured I will do my best, as I always do, to be overly opinionated, prematurely judgemental, and harshly generalizational of my host country. Just this morning I stepped off a 36 hour train ride from Mongolia, which included a half a day stop, where my train carriage was thoroughly searched by border authorities, as in removing pieces of train floorboard and ceiling pieces and looking into crawl spaces with flashlights, and the Kyrzygh man who was traveling in my carriage was removed, along with all his belongings, to await an unknown future at what must be the most desolate border crossing in the world. Poor guy, as the train police led him away he pointed at his uneaten sausage log and indicated that it was mine to consume. Even in his point of demise he was thoughtful. It was touching. And it wasn't mutton. Anyway, the change from Mongolia to Russia was massive. In Mongolia I was a white-faced tourist, who stood out, was often stared at, and attracted much attention. In Siberia, I am a red-faced (from the cold and wind) tourist who fits right in. Most of the folks here have a lighter complextion than I do. As always there are advantages and disadvantages to these things. Advantage: no more hassle, harrassment and attempted extortion by poverty-stricken locals who see me as a walking $ sign. Disadvantage: everyone thinks I am Russian so they speak freely to me and I can only say "nyet ruski" (no Russian). So far the only word I've learned is spaceba (thanks). Not even sure if that is spelled right because most words have a backwards 3 in them somewhere. Cyrillic characters are just plain baffling. One good thing is that there is a Marx boulevard and a Lenin avenue in each town, just as the US has an MLK drive in each city, so I can usually navigate those main roads. Well, the reason I am rambling is because I won't have much to add to the website for the next week or so, for various reasons. Number one is that I have calculated how many hours it is going to take me to get to the Northwestern-most corner of Europe I want to make it to, Helsinki, Finland. Its a good 104 hours by train from here. So in my quest to travel the 15000 kilometers or so from the most southeast corner of Asia to the northwest corner of Europe, all by land, all by train, I have just begun the battle. But I feel I have already traveled so far. Anyway, I am currently dwelling somewhere in the barren purgatory between being an outsider and a local, an Asian and a European. That is the feeling I have fostered in Siberia. You will hear from me on the other side, from the EU, in about a week's time, if all goes well on the Trans-Siberian Express.
May 14, 2008, Ulan Bator, Mongolia - Website related news and lots of it. First of all, I have posted four new albums on the photo page. There are photos from Beijing, an album from our long train ride through the Gobi Desert into Outer Mongolia, an album of pictures Ryan and I took in the capital, Ulan Bator, and finally, an album of pictures from the Mongolian countryside. If you are into baby animals and kids making cute faces and blissful poverty you should definitely check out the latter of the albums. Secondly, I have created video pages for all my videos from China and Mongolia. If you don't know where to find those by now then........I will tell you again. Click on the photos tab on the left of this page and scroll to the bottom of the photo page. There are tons of video pages with tons of videos. Just to whet your interest in videos I will include one here (most of them have a lot more substance than this one but this one is pretty important too).
May 13, 2008, Ulan Bator, Mongolia - The last week has been pretty much insane. Times have varied: from things such as simple, pleasant horse rides through the valleys of the Mongolian steppe, to visits to ancient monastaries, to spending the night in Yurts deep in the countryside, to the opposite end of the spectrum, total chaos, when my friend Ryan Fitzsimmons and I were about 10 seconds away from being tasered at a kareoke club at 3am, for disputing a ridiculously overpriced bill. They were trying to rip us off and we weren't havin' none of that. But when one of the guys showed up with handcuffs, another with a taser, displaying that it worked by showing us a few practice zaps, we knew things were getting serious. How, in the same day that we had woken up at sunrise in the peacefulness of Mongolian farmland had our day ended up with us being locked in a dungeon in a kareoke bar being threatened by psychotic barstaff? The answer: Mongolia. It is a crazy and wonderful and baffling place all at once. I call it the Paraguay of Asia. Landlocked, poor, sandwiched between two much more 'important' nations, a history full of invasion and exploitation. It didn't take us long to realize that in Mongolia the questions usually don't have answers, so they are not worth asking.
Mongolfia: Ryan strikes a ball deep into the tundra at the Terelj golf course driving range in the middle of absolutely nowhere
As an example, the first hostel we walked into was run by a nazi-esque Russian, named Zaya. All over the walls of the hostal were posted rules and quotes: If you wear your shoes inside you will mop the floor; also, people in Mongolia don't bargain - we aren't Chinese (as if being Chinese or economically competitive are signs of a lower race of humanity). But the two most important rules she had posted in her hostal actually came in handy during our time here in Mongolia. Those were: 1) Accept the way things are and 2) Don't have any expectations in Mongolia. Rule one sounds like it came right out of the communist handbook but we really did have to accept the way things are here. That means, as an example, mutton for every meal. If I never eat another piece of mutton in my life it will be too soon. But that's the way it is, so I accept it. I ordered vegetarian soup this evening, which was loaded with fatty mutton. Accept it. As far as rule two, having no expectations, me and Ryan consider ourselves to be semi-pro travelers and therefore are very laid back about when things don't run like they should. Say a bus doesn't come on time or 19 internet cafes in a row don't have a cd burner to put your digital pictures on CD. Coming to Mongolia, or to any foreign country with those kinds of expectations, sets yourself up for frustration and a bad time. We rolled with the punches and things went quite well for us here.
So, Ryan left this morning, giving me time to get my pictures together, which will hopefully be posted by tomorrow evening. Maybe even a photojournal I created while traveling in China. But no promises. Tomorrow evening my slow train to the Russian Federation's state of Siberia departs. It's an agonizing 36 hours that gets me all of about 1000 kilometers. I don't even want to do the math to figure out what speed this train runs at but, once again, no expectations. But one thing I do expect is the toughest border crossing of my young life. Just securing a Russian visa took weeks to months of my time, several trips to a sketchy Russian travel agency in Bothell, a study in Russian red-tape-ology, and massive patience. I have a letter of invitation and a visa, so I should be able to do what very, very few travelers have done in Russia, and that is to travel independently. The old law required all tourists to arrive in large groups, itineraries pre-determined down to the very minute, and stays in expensive government-run hotels. The rules have relaxed just a little and at just the right time for me, but I expect a cold, stern warning, if not a frozen strip search and request for a bribe, at the Siberian border for not having any sort of itinerary for my few weeks in the Russian Federation. But really I will just have to accept the way things are and have no expectations. Thanks Zaya.
If everything works out at the border I will arrive in a city called Irkutsk, a formerly wild-west type frontier town, which is about 70 kilometers from one of the world's greatest natural wonders - Lake Baikal. This lake is the deepest on the planet and contains 20% of the world's fresh water. It has an insane variety of wildlife and isolated marine species, including giant, deep-water sturgeon and the only species of fresh-water seal - species which are found nowhere else in the world. The water is even supposed to be clean enough to drink...if it's not frozen. So that's my plan. But a couple days there and my time will be up. It takes 4 days to get from Irkutsk to Moscow by train - that's with no stops. So I gotta start heading west if I want to make it home by July. That's all for now.
May 7, 2008, Ulan Bator, Mongolia - First of all, we made it. Ryan and I survived a 36 hour train ride, crossing the border from China to Mongolia in style and elegance - if style and elegance is smelly clothes and eyelids so droopy they looked like pieces of carry-on luggage. There is much to be said about Beijing, our train trip and our entrance into Mongolia, as well as many new photos and videos to be uploaded. But Ryan and I have limited time in Mongolia so there will be a delay until I can get some more things up on the website concerning China and Mongolia. We will be busy riding and eating camels and horses, drinking fermented mare's milk, and generally living the Yurt Life. Just to give you an idea of how our journey is coming along and how much stature we have achieved in Central Asia I will post this picture of my commrade Ryan and I in our newly acquired Chinese army jackets, replete with historic medals of honor (not shown - we hadn't purchased them yet when this photo was taken).
Chinese generals give orders and never take them
As for the website, I now have access to viewing it so as far as I can tell all the major errors have been fixed. Pictures are where they should be. The recent writing now has the correct pictures in the correct places, and the maps in the where am i section have all been updated. But there will be more to come soon. Stop by again in a few days and I will have something more for you. Bayar la (thank you in Mongolian).
April 30, 2008, Xi'an, China - Lots of news concerning the website. The first is that I added a new piece of writing about Vietnam, called Resilience and Rice Liquor. Please excuse the multitude of typos, mispellings (there is no spellcheck here) and probably a lack of pictures. There are supposed to be six pictures in the piece but only employee #4342 of the 30,000 workers that the Chinese government employs to police the internet truly knows because I still have no way to see what my website looks like. Hopefully the links all work. If not, send your complaints to Yurt number 53, Outer Mongolia, because I will be riding a yak out there soon with my friend Ryan and will have no way to access the internet. Secondly, I have posted two albums of photos from my loooooooooooooooooooooooooong overland journey through China. There are pictures from Southwest China and Central China. Again, please excuse the repetitiveness of the photos. It was all I could do just to 'upload' them, a very foreign concept here. Finally, it has been mentioned to me that I may not be doing a good enough job explaining that I have uploaded almost a hundred videos to my website of my trip thus far. They can be accessed at the bottom of the photos page, under the giant word that says VIDEO. They may take a while to load but they are decent quality and give a pretty good perspective on the action packed life around here. As they say, a video is worth a thousand pictures, or something. Currently I just have the video pages up for New Zealand, Australia, and Vietnam but China will be forthcoming, whenever I reach a country that has a real internet connection. This could be a while. To summarize, 1) new writing 2) new photos 3) watch the videos.
As for me, I am off to Beijing, to bask in the world's most
polluted city for a few days, to watch how they are hastily patching up
the city's blemishes in time for the Olympics. I am meeting my friend
Ryan Fitz, who is in need of some respite from the big city life like
myself. So we will take the train from the city of 17 million people to
a country of less than 3 million, Mongolia, the least densly populated
country on earth. Should be quite a contrast.
April 26, 2008, Chongqing, China - I had my first good day in China
today. Besides the fact that this riverside city is just awesome and
authentic and not as westernized/modernized as some of the other cities
I have seen, the real reason I am in heaven is that my day included
eating ungodly amounts of spectacular Chinese food, obviously. The dish
I tried is one of the most famous in China - called a Sichuan Hot Pot.
A gas stove under your table is lit to heat up a pot of delicious broth
to a boil. Inside the pot is a smaller pot containing oil and some
venemous peppers, local to the region, which are supposed to inflict
much damage to the unwary. They are legendary for their heat, thus I
had to heed their call. I've beent training for a month now with
Vietnamese peppers so I had no problem with these. Anyway, they bring
you just about anything you can think of to chuck into either the broth
or the oil/pepper mixture, as both boil over at your table: bamboo,
seaweed, beef, ham, asian mushrooms, croquets, ox stomach lining -
whatever you damn want. 
words do not do this dish justice
After you cook your food in either the broth or oil you dunk it into a mixture of vinegar, salt, a light oil and some more spices and then eat it down. I gorged to sinly proportions. I will never be able to eat Chinese food in the US again. It's so unbelievably tasty and fresh here. Not fried and full of msg. And always under a dollar, unless you get something as elaborate as the hot pot. I don't speak a word of Chinese but I haven't ordered (pointed at) a bad bowl of noodles yet!
Videos from North Vietnam now have a home under the video section of my photos tab. See 'em and weep.
April 25, 2008, Chongqing, China - I finally posted some of my writing from Vietnam up on the interweb. Check it out under the writing tab. It's called Vietnam Phenom. Anybody who knows anything about politics, please feel free to send your comments/corrections my way, because you will notice that I know very little...about a lot.
TIBET=CLOSED
April 24, 2008, Chengdu, China - First, let me say that I am absolutely flattered. I feel so important. China has blocked my website from appearing in China. It cannot be accessed. The Great fireWall of China has found some content worthy of censoring or offensive or, om, true. Somehow I have angered the Great Dragon from abroad, even before arriving here. But now that I am here I can do even more damage from within. They may be able to block me from viewing my website in China but they can't block you and they can't stop me from going through the back door and uploading my html files through a secure file transfer protocol that they have no control over - at least I don't think they can. How ya like them apples, Big Brother?
I didn't even have a reason to write today other than to say I made it into China. I am safe. But since The Man is blocking me I am perturbed enough to prove them useless by uploading some content.
I have penetrated deep into China. And let me just say I am goddamn confused and shocked. First of all, I came to China for two things: 1) to visit Tibet and 2) to begin a train journey that takes me from Beijing to Western Europe. For a year I tried to plan a trip on the newly opened train line to Tibet but I could get no information other than I could spend thousands on a package tour or just wait to sort it out when I got here. Well, I am here, but guess what? Tibet is closed to foreigners. Package tour or not, nobody's getting in. So I guess I saved some serious cash by not booking in advance. Like thousands. Several sources here have verified that Tibet=closed. That's right, those selfish Tibetans, always thinking about their problems, are protesting during my vacation. How could they be so self-centered. Anyway, I've already been as close to the Tibetan border as I will make it on this trip and it's a sad day to turn the other way, and avoid the Chinese authorities pistol whipping me at the border, and give up hope on that project. But it's not worth getting my skull cracked. Maybe someday in the future I can visit.
I am purposefully taking a route through Central China, skipping the coastal megapolises of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Shanghai, in order to get a feel for the Chinese countryside, the rural lifestyle, and the immense impact development is having on the country. I have a lot to say about that so far but right now I am just too confused to say anything. I have spent 60 hours straight penetrating into this country, including about 2 hours being detained and interrogated at the border by 5 uniformed agents in a steamy room, who quizzed suspiciously me about a trip I took to Turkey in 2002, among many other things. They must've thumbed through my passport 50 times. That is also another story for the future. The point is I have made it and there will be a lot of stories to come, if I can sneak them passed the authorities.
For now just let me provide this simple information: if anybody ever asks me what it's like arriving in China I will ask them if they want the visual discription or the verbal description.
visual description:
If they ask for the verbal description I will say: Imagine arriving in New York City for the first time in your life and you are alone, confused, clueless and afraid. And also you are illiterate, deaf, and mute.
There you have it. I will be cruising on the Yangtzee river on route to Beijing over the next couple of days.
April 20, 2008, Hanoi, Vietnam - Oh duct tape. How I crave thee. Somehow, in the last few days, I misplaced my oft-utilized roll of American-made duct tape that accompanies me throughout any serious traveling that I undertake. It doesn't seem like an issue, but it really is. Strong silver cloth adhesive was the only thing holding my camera together. No duct tape, no camera. No camera, no photographs. Ouch. So I won't be uploading any new photos anytime soon.
I recently spent an afternoon wandering the streets of Hanoi's plumbing store district in denial, thinking there was an outside chance I would find quality adhesive with the strength and reliability of my favorite fix-all solution to everything. At about the tenth store I came across some semi-pro version of duct tape, but without the glorious interwoven cloth that makes duct tape so durable. In my denial, I figured a cheaply made Chinese knock-off of the real thing would suffice, but to my utter dismay, upon returning to my hotel room in exitement for my new purchase, the tape would not hold my camera together. I almost wept. I still optimistically believe that somewhere in either China or Vietnam a roll of true duct tape exists, but I doubt I will ever find it.
My father taught me a lot of things, but for half of what he taught me, the things I find most valuable and useful in my life, I have never given him proper personal credit. The miracle of duct tape, however, is not one of those things. I have made it very clear to him how much I appreciate his bestowement of the knowledge of the silver cloth adhesive that has truly improved my life. As for now, I will just try to live a good, honest life. But it will be a life without duct tape. It's tough to convince myself that life is worth living without it, but the strength that carries me through each day is that I know one day soon, in the not too distant future, I will reunited with a roll of shiny, sticky cloth tape. That knowledge, it keeps me going.
As for the knock-off tape, it has its role in my life, if you will excuse the poor heterographical pun. I spent some time today covering the cover, maps, and certain key pages of my Lonely Planet China guidebook with strips of low quality tape. Apparently, Chinese officials at the border will seize any guidebook that does not include Taiwan as a part of China. Most guidebooks do not and that infuriates the thought police. So I covered the Lonely Planet emblems, the cover that says "China", the maps that don't include Taiwan as part of China (all of them), and anything else suspicious with a layer of silver tape. Hopefully I can make it past the border with this poorly disguised book, because without it I will be even more lost when I enter the country.
The brand of Chinese authoritarianism that is responsible for the paranoid activity I described above is what both intrigues me and frightens me about my time there. It will be interesing to be in a country that will filter all my emails containing banned words, which will be most of them, and ensures they never reach their intended target, and controls which websites I can visit. But when I am detained and questioned for hours in a Chinese police building for doing something I thought was a normal activity, I am most certainly going to be perturbed. I met a dude from Seattle last night who told me how his friends lived and owned a business in China and went to see the new Olympic stadium in Beijing. When they arrived they were detained in a jail for 24 hours, forced to leave China on their own accord (read: they had to leave ASAP and pay for it themselves), and when they tried to enter back in they learned they were blacklisted for the next 365 days and could not enter China. Obviously their Chinese business is now defunct.
I will end my discussion here and begin to formulate my own opinions with first-hand knowledge, so I can speak with more confidence. Tomorrow I cross the border from Vietnam to China. Things should get interesting. But as far as my writing, photography and internet-based communication are concerned, from now until I cross from China into Mongolia on May 6th, consider me to be locked in a pair of duct-tape handcuffs and fitted with a duct-tape muzzle.
April 18, 2008, Hanoi, Vietnam - I went out on a cruise ship into Halong Bay for several days and I just returned to Hanoi. The next step is a jump into China, which really scares me right now. I have become so comfortable with the way of life here. I think China will be much more foreign and confusing, but here goes anyway. I need to be up in Beijing in a couple of weeks so I have got to get hustling. There are a few things here in north Vietnam that are starting to hanoi me anyway, so crossing the border will be a nice change. As far as pictures go, I have added a new batch, called North Vietnam. That's it for my Vietnamese pictures. I think they turned out well, or at least indicative of the beauty of the geography and culture here. The newest ones contain a lot of me in Halong Bay, which is a beautiful, if polluted area of fantastic rock formations. Check them out if you are interested. Well, my goal for the next week is to sneak into Tibet so I may be home sooner than I want to be, when the Chinese authorites deport me for attempting to illegally enter. Regardless, it should make a good story. Wish me luck.
April 14, 2008, Halong Bay, Vietnam - I have taken a ridiculous amount of photos here in Vietnam. This place is more photogenic than, uh, George Clooney, or something. It's a shame I can't bore you with all of them. I have selected a mere 84 of the thousands taken and put them in my newest album, called Central Vietnam. Check it out under the photos tab.
April 13, 2008, Hanoi, Vietnam - Oh the joys of traveling. When else, other than in an airport bathroom stall containing an Idaho Senator, would you be able to describe the act of being molested as an enlightening experience? I met a Vietnamese man just the other day. I believe his name was Phon Dol Me. Because he Fondled Me. It was a stroke of bad luck that occured, you guessed it, in a bathroom stall. Before I get to that, though, please let me explain a few other baffling experiences that have had me wondering what the crap is going on at the moment.
1) Old Vietnamese ladies LOVE me! I walk into their restaurants, which serve only one item, their homemade specialty. Sometimes it is rice paste mixed with oil and shrimp, wrapped in banana leaves and boiled, with fish sauce poured over the top (banh nam). Or it could be any number of other fantastic novelties. It's a little bit different wherever you go. And in every spot there is a certain way to eat the house dish. So every time I walk into these restaurants the old ladies are so fascinated with my existence that often times they will sit down and have their meal right along with me. It's priceless. But there is no opportunity for verbal exchange, so usually it is me eating, them laughing at my manner of eating, them pointing out to anybody within ear shot that the western dude doesn't know how to eat, at which point I shrug my shoulders. After about five minutes of laughing they reach across the table and pour the 'proper' amount of each sauce onto my meal and show me how to use a spoon. My face then turns bright red, from the flaming peppers I have added, and the fact that I am thirty years old and they think I am a baby. It's quite funny really.
2) A little girl served me some Pho at a family joint a few days back. She brought out the bowl of noodles and the plates of vegetable fixins to pour on top. By this point I consider myself a Pho Star general when it comes to consuming the Vietnamese national dish, so I take orders from nobody. I began my routine of chucking all the goods into the bowl and the 8 year old came running out screaming "Nooooo!" I had made the ultimate error in her mind. After adding the fresh basil to the mixture I usually just throw the long asian green leaves on top. But this is not proper, according to the child. The correct way is to rip the leaves into tiny bits. She began showing me, ripping each piece into bits over my bowl, while I just sat and watched, bewildered. By the time I am in my mid-40s I may reach Vietnamese culinary puberty.
3) If you have seen movies such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocolypse Now, and others in the Vietnam War genre, you may have seen the scenes of rife prostitution in the streets of Saigon. The streets are very accurately portrayed in those films: busy, fast-paced, neon-lit, chaotic. But one thing that has changed is that there are hardly any prostitutes frequenting the old US GI-turned tourist districts. There are rarely the oft-heard come-ons from the Veitnam flicks of 'sucky sucky' 'me love you long time' 'boom boom' or the most direct 'f*cky f*cky'. In Saigon, I was, in fact, not propositioned once. Was it my hair? Well, finally, midway up the coast, I was walking in a peaceful marketplace on the banks of a serene river in a chilled-out town when my streak of non-propositioning came to a sudden halt. A lass who looked about 30, so who was probably 40, came up to me and said, "You like to buy fruit?" Before I could answer, she said, "Hey, you very good looking. Wow, you nice. You want we go to my place soon and get very close?" I tried to play pessimist and pretend she was asking me for a badly needed English lesson but, my false hopes were shattered when she made good on the directness of her proposition. "I give you good price." Not that I was interested in this girl in the least bit to begin with, but there is nothing that kills my libido like the idea of paying for sex. Personal opinion, it just doesn't seem, om, authentic. There are a million and seven other reasons I wasn't interested in 'getting close' to her, but I was pleased that at least she didn't say 'sucky sucky.'
4) This one I would rather forget but instead I will publish it on the World Wide Web for all to see. The next day I was walking through some amazing ancient ruins, from the Champa civilization, from around the 12th century. No time to explain. Since this was a place I paid admission to, I knew I could use a decent bathroom facility, so I took advantage by walking down a few flights of stairs to the set of stanky, humid, unsanitary bathrooms standard in the third-world. The place was empty and had three stalls. I chose the middle due to unmentionable factors. As I took care of business I noticed that a wooden slat from the paneled door was strategically missing at about eye level so that somebody could easily peak into the stall to see what was transpiring. To my disdain, somebody was easily peaking inside the stall to see what was transpiring. A pair of eyes was looking right in at my business. I thought this was odd because there were free stalls so nobody should be waiting on me to finish. I finished what I needed to do, packed my toilet paper into my bag and looked up at the slat again. Eyes still there. Pervert Alert. Undeterred, I pushed the door open. Now let me mention that I keep all my important things together when I am traveling. My passport, credit cards, cash, all that goes in a tiny pouch, which I strap real close to my privates. I put all my eggs in one basket, if you will excuse the pun, because I feel I am not going to 'lose' my crotch so, by logic, I probably won't lose anything strapped to it. Here's where it gets ugly. As I open the door, the guy waiting for me in the bathroom, quicker than lightning, thrusts his hand toward my crotch, squeezes and pulls away before I have a chance to bat an eye. With just this quick maneuver, however, he was able to decipher the size and shape of my ding-a-ling, apparently. In my shock I heard the following words uttered from his mouth, which was dangerously close to mine in this confined space: "Oh, very big. Very gooooood." I was too shocked to do what I should have, which was to chest chuck him as hard as possible, sliding him flailing across the feces-covered bathroom floor. I just galloped away, disturbed and traumatized. How could this happen at such a holy site? By the time I got to the bathroom exit I was finally composed enough to utter a string of unmentionable words to him, which I am sure he didn't understand, because his response was only to raise his eyebrows enticingly, as if to say the proposition was still on if I was interested. He apparently hadn't discerned my barrage of homophobic and slanderous insults. I am not homophobic by nature but nobody has the right to grab my junk without permission. Nobody. I walked up the stairs quickly to get away from the terrible scene of the incident. A few meters away, on level ground, already fighting the queasiness and anger of the experience, I made the mistake of looking back to the staircase from where I had just emerged. There was my boy, emerging from the catacombs, smile on his face, eybrows raising and lowering like Piston Honda, still with the nerve to propostion me one last time. What could I do except laugh...and walk to the nearest secruity guard. "You speak English?" "No" "Well there's a dirtbag hanging out in the men's room doing freelance physicals. You might want to do something about him." Not understanding a word, the guard nodded. Well, I did what I could. Hopefully his next victim was a more willing participant. I can't even attempt an analysis of this event. I don't now how much this has to do with gay culture, Vietnamese culture, or Vietnamese view of western culture. So I will just speculate a few possibilities. Maybe the guy was just looking for a quick buck and if he grabs enough tourist crotches he will eventually run into an Idaho senator and have his way with him. Maybe he was just an opportunist, looking for some fun. Maybe I set off his gaydar. Who knows, but I was a dirty, stinking, tired wreck of a person so I should've exuded no vibe to attract either sex at the time. To me he was just a pervert who went way too far. And for the record, the only sack he grasped in his attempt at a bathroom bj was my sack of valuables, my credit cards and passport. So me saying he called me 'very big' is not an attempt to tout my own size, it's to point out that this man is so sexually deviant that he was turned on by a 'penis' the size and shape of a passport. My goodness. Also for the record, my passport IS pretty big.
from
the overseen recently column: a zen buddhist with a weedeater poses an
eternal question: what is the sound of one blade of grass being cut?
April 8, 2008, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - I have posted pictures of my time so far in Saigon/South Vietnam. Please find them under the photo tab under Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam. There are quite a few but I think the most interesting batch so far on this trip, due to the incredibly rich culture here. Also on the photo page, under video (near the bottom), you will find the video page from Vietnam so far. There are a lot of videos of motos driving around. I can't get over my fascination with the traffic here. But there are quite a few other videos from inside pagodas and on the Mekong River. check them out if you've got time. And finally, posted in my writing section is my newest piece, which is an ode to surfing, or a lament to lost surfboards, depending on your mood at the time.
April 7, 2008, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - Still in central Saigon. Now I understand why the US troops spent so much time here in the 60s and 70s. It's an absolute paradise. Despite the fact that I have about 12,000 miles in front of me before I land in western Europe, I just can't seem to pull myself out of Ho Chi Minh. By now I have my favorite juice vendor, a dude who makes me crunchy and tasty baguette sandwiches for 30 cents, my homeboy pho joint, where I no longer have to order. They just bring my 'usual' to the table. I have definitely developed a routine. Just the other day I stumbled across the bia hoi (cheap beer) corner, a tiny storefront that is crammed full of plastic chairs and tables. It has flickering lights, a keg jutted up against the wall, no music, no tv, just girls that bring cold glasses of warm beer and run your tap-beer tab by writing the number you have drank on a little bingo-like card. As the 28 cent beers are finished the card starts to fill up with marks. Finish the card and it's Blackout! In more ways that one. With reluctance, however, I bought myself a bus ticket to Hanoi, the northern city in Vietnam, so that I can stay on track with being in China by may. I leave tonight. The 2000 km bus ride cost me a ghastly 23 dollars, and I am stopping in a couple places on the way up to see the country a little more. Such is Vietnam. A couple of signs seen recently around the city (apparently I have left my mark):
and what a dynasty it was
i am pho, pho is me
April 3, 2008, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - It should be called Pho Chi Minh City. Actually, we will leave it at Ho. If you are wondering, the redness on my face, which you cannot see so I don't know why I mentioned it, is not from the 93 degree heat and humidity here. It's from the fact that I didn't get here sooner. It's amazing! Okay, I admit, one part of it might be that I have an Asia fetish. Now, take it easy! I didn't say Asian - it's the continent I love, not the female race, although they are a good looking bunch. So I think I have a new flavorite country. You read that right. The food here is giving Thai food a run for its money and in a few weeks there might be a new champion in my book. Indian food is still running a close third, if you are keeping tabs. Anyway, I just want to explain a few things about my first day in 'nam. Not all days can possibly be this perfect but if they come even close during the rest of my time in 'nam then I am in for some fun. I spent the day eating, touring the city, eating, almost getting hit by motorbikes, and then eating a few more times. Will I gain weight in Asia, where last time I lost 20 pounds.? I hope I damn do. Here's why: Yesterday, my first day here, I headed out in the hot morning sun, braving the pollution, weather, disorientation, jetlag, lack of sleep, and knowledge about anything Vietnamese. I walked the city for almost 12 hours, taking in 5 museums, countless pagodas, many noxious fumes, and sadly, the true horror that is the leftovers of the Vietnam War. I don't feel comforatble writing anything about what I saw yet. There is too much for me to absorb and process when it comes to this awful page in history, but as an American, even as a human, there were several times where I just about broke down, feeling so sorry for these people, who have endured centuries of warfare. It's sickening.
Yet
another American foot Soldier invades 'Nam: Midway through day one of
ramsacking the war-horror sewn concrete jungle of Saigon
But every time I was dehydrated enough to passout or perturbed enough by images of bloody conflict to give up hope on humanity I would step into a small joint for a fresh Vietnamese delicacy. Probably not a healthy coping mechanism. You be the judge. Here was my selection of grub for the first day: breakfast: a large French bread roll stacked high with thinly sliced meat, some cheese, tomatoes, Asian lettuce, cucumbers, onions, a strange Asian sauce that somehow made it taste Vietnamese, peppers. You name it. I will name the price: 30 cents. Lunch: a sizzling platter shaped like a cow, containing a pepper steak drizzled with some sort of spicy mushroom cream sauce. Grilled onions and chicken pieces covered the rest of the platter, sauces aplenty, some fries and veggies, a small salad, a baguette, a creamy, sugary, milk-like drink over ice (I don?t know what any of this food is called, I just walk into a place and point to something on the menu that I can?t pronounce) - 2.75$ for that feast. A little pricey but I did walk about 10 k before that and I needed something to keep going.
The complexity of flavors in this meal almost mooooved me to tears
Snack: I found the cheap juices. Almost all the tropical flavors I can handle. I had to start with my favorite fruit in the world, sour sop, made into a shake, followed by a bag of chopped up green mango with red pepper and lime seasoning powder - 60 cents total.
Dinner: (this is where things got insane) a platter of
boiled sea snai
l
s in shell, marinated in a spicy, buttery coconut sauce, topped with fresh basil and chilies. Escargot in the Ho! for 2 dollars! How can this be?
! 
Walking
up to a street food vendor serving seafood in a city which is not on
the ocean on my first day in the third world seemed a little ballsy to
me. Or just plain stupid.
but
how could i turn down the various scrum-didly-umptious seasnails, or
were they land snails? Whatever they were, they were fresh and
delicious.
Dessert: (I had to press my luck) a half developed duck embryo, still
in unhatched egg, topped with salt, pepper and basil. This might sound
disgusting but, of course, it was great! You just crack the shell and
dig in. There are plenty of veins, soft embryo and dull-colored yolk to
dig through. Also, near the bottom I found something so hard I was
going to spit it out but I was with some friends I had met so I chomped
it. I believe it was the developing bird. But who knows? The dish is
called Hot Vit Lon. I recommend looking it up for a much better
explanation. Or try this link, for a more graphic view
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXucin9iIaE). (please note: I am not an
Anthony Bordain fan). Dessert cost: 40 cents. 
notice the veiny egg. tee-hee.
In summary, it was the best culinary day of my life. And it cost me 7 dollars. AND, I didn't get sick...yet. Thank you for your time.
April 1, 2008, Sydney, Australia, on route to Vietnam! - New writing posted. Chock-full of TMI.
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