Lose The Map

Postcards from Moscow - Winter

2012-02-01T05:54:00.001-08:00

The apotheosis of being Russian, a hymn of joy that blows from Siberia, the storm before the calm: Winter!
The Russian winter is generally divided into two sub-winters: days (or weeks) of white monochrome skies and a blanket of gray that pervades every hole; these are days I call Black & White, where the challenge is to grasp the nuance, the detail.
The other sub-winter, is when the cloudy blanket temporarily decides to open up and be invaded by the object-desire of Muscovites: the Sun
And when it arrives, what a show: fellow citizens give their best, the expressions do not change, rather they are motionless as ever, and life goes on like a mazurka, or a piece of kitsch-pop-post-soviet.
The children all wrapped in jackets love to slide down with sledges; parents watch them, all wrapped in jackets, and smile inside their scarves.
Smiling for the Russians is the most secret art, a private pleasure that no one is allowed in public.
Indeed it need to be deserved. What? Being happy.

Postcards from Moscow - Autumn

2011-12-01T04:15:00.000-08:00

Autumn in Moscow is as beautiful as painful: at first is a true romantic explosion of colours, a rainbow of emotions connecting the hot dusty summer to the freezing icy winter. Leaves all around, a sweet melancholy of lost dreams.
Slowly all the leaves are carried away by the soviet administration, and inexorably life dies, day after day, and a colorful melancholy leaves place to a sad bare ground.
Pulling out the jacket from the wardrobe and putting the sun back into it; the mirage of a fast summer slowly fades out, like the end of a nice movie.
The frost slowly takes over, and Russians eventually find themselves in their natural environment.

Postcards from Moscow - Summer

2011-09-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

Moscow is a matryoshka of bureaucracy, mafia (sub-layered into policemen, politicians, oilmen, bankers, office criminals, street criminals, and generally everybody else), sold ideals, lost identities, money, insane traffic jams, insanely parked cars, nice architecture, ugly architecture, beautiful women, gorgeous babushkas, alcoholics, nostalgics and dreamers.
Living in the suburbs of Moscow offer a unique point of view over the real feel of the city, away from luxory places frequented by the elite, russian bandits and rich expats. It's also a true school of life, full of challenges, adjustments and, most of all, understanding. To understand Russians is probably the biggest and most rewarding experience.
It's a long way, though.
This collection of postcards resumes the tragicomedy of life in Moscow during the boiling summer: the miracle of life unfolds its secrets.
Harsh, funny, crazy, melancholic, careless, cold, dirty, noisy, mercyless, romantic, true, spoiled, sinking, expanding, screaming, boiling: welcome to Moscow!

Moscow breakfast, 8am: fresh 66cl beer while enjoying the last page of a newspaper

The new face of Russia

Two men and some beers looking at a nice panorama

Walking in downtown you will see hundreds of high fashion shops and expensive stuff, but you will struggle to find a grocery store; that's why the government unexpectedly authorized open markets in city center to ease life of muscovites, who cannot feed themselves with Gucci and Cartier.
Could it be any better?

Russian way of repressing bells

A summer rain can melt everything: even zebra crossings!

A very brave man fights the Moscow traffic with a motorized bicycle. All my respect!

Russian men can easily be heavy-beer drinkers or cool family-men; often both at the same time

Russians love gardening

A nice old garbage bin on fire

This dude is going to get the latest shit in a ROCK SHOP...

... while this one is waiting for somebody to buy flowers to...
A bit of resentment transpires from his face

Shopping addiction is a must in Moscow

Washing a theatre...

... and painting it up and down

In the metro - more here

Very Moscow I

Very Moscow II

Very Moscow III

Very Moscow IV

Very Moscow V

Very Russia I

Very Russia II

Very Russia III

Very Russia IV

Very Russia V

The sun setting on the Boulevards fulfills our day.
The white thing in the air is called "Summer snow" - as if we miss snow here

Notification board from municipality and a mini-football playground.
As always safety matters

Nature in Moscow is overwhelming

This is not a trekking through north Thailand's jungle, but a feeding ducks session in a beautiful wooden track on a lake in Moscow's suburbs!

Ecological house - Moscow "Provence"

Many mothers can look out for their children from the window, while cooking borsch, without bothering coming outside.
Comfort is a must in Russia, everything is carefully planned for the daily routine to proceed without interruptions.

Siesta

Another great example of Russian loving care: if trees are accidentally chopped down, they are painted green (preferably with cheap and toxic paint) in order to blend with the flourishing nature and maintain harmony

Bicycles are not very popular in Moscow, it would be quite a suicide to ride around such insane drivers. Apparently though it's popular to leave the dog tied to bicycle parkings while buying goods, such as beer, at the supermarket.

Outstanding open-air display of cosmetics for fashion addicted hipsters.
Professional client service is offered by this gentleman and the cheerleader next to him

Dwarf market overview

Dwarf market detail

To reach the apteka - pharmacy, you must first visit this beautiful cake shop

Nice animal food store located inside a human food store. The scent here is rare!

Metalloremont - Interesting to notice how in many many shops in Russia the transaction between shop-keeper and customer happens through a mini hole in the wall - maybe to avoid the uncomfortable task of looking at each other, let alone greeting or smiling.

Again, customer service is priority

Drive-through-natural-food shop on a sidewalk in downtown Moscow

One of the very few car-free alleys in Moscow center

The term Milizia has recently changed into Polizia, softer term but same criminals behind it

Milizia aka police: top 5 criminal organization in Russia; nonetheless the best career opportunity for lazy, violent, uneducated and corruptible people. Pretty girls also welcomed.

Is policeman duty not to regulate the insane Moscow traffic nor to care about the uncountable traffic rule brakers.
Indeed he should stop innocent pedestrians on zebra crossing and use their indisputable power to extort as much money as possible using cheap techniques and false accusations.

This was amazing: an ambulance with sirens loudly on miraculously managed to cut through this 3-lane avenue without being smashed by the hurried drivers, who were speeding up without bothering.
It's fondamental to have a toy-camera always ready on hands to catch these brilliant moments

This is also amazing: all of a sudden Moscow center sidewalks have been pulverized. Why?
Apparently one of the many Moscow mayor concubines has an affair ALSO with a huge company producing bricks. Hence the large and long asphalted sidewalks are going to be filled with million of nicely and uselessly crafted bricks

Experts in engineering and safety are making sure everything carefully follows the plan

On the right side, between these experts and that bus there's a 1 meter corridor where pedestrians are allowed to walk. All is for safety's sake

Daily activities go on in full swing

Nice overview of Moscow center during the works

Brick-carving

Emergency beer container

Do not smoke: soviet petrol station

Well equipped flea market in downtown

DIY fashion market. Sadly cars are confined outside this tiny pedestrian zone

DIY fashion market door-to-door agent. The black car is like a work permit here.

Highly skilled archeologists in safety outfit are discovering and cataloguing old remains of the ancient city

Soviet cafe

Summer is almost over: first day of school!

Postcards from Moscow - Spring

2011-07-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

Like every big city Moscow offers everything: from super top to ultra bottom!
Without compromises and compliments, Moscow is a tough city, indeed it won't leave you indifferent.
Winter is just finished: in the end of April we can finally take off our jacket and hope for a mild spring...
This is an ironic eye over this mad city:

Welcome to Moscow! April 2011

Classic Russian railway platform - from here love for Russia begins

What a striking Russian history piece: Peter the Great hidden behind naked trees and in foreground CCCP logo and main starrings!

End of April: eventually all the snow has melted and we can see the bare ground.
Fresh dry rotten tree leaves from last autumn had been preserved by the ice and are shown back: a touch of november in the middle of april, no grass, no green, no flowers...
I'm so sad I started my toy-shooting too late and didn't shoot March, when the snow slowly starts to melt down and a 5 months-old storage of human and animal waste is mercilessly revealed, one of the saddest scenario i ever saw.
Maybe next spring I'll be more ready and more brave to click, maybe.

At times it's not so bad: the romantic decadence of an April day in Moscow can be enjoyed on a sunday afternoon stroll on Boulevard Ring.

Slowly, shyly, shamefully, grass grows.
It's May 1st, and finally real spring is coming; while joying for International Workers' Day people starts to believe in life again, slowly and mistrustingly.
This Vysotki is my favourite among the Seven Sisters

Russian flag proudly displayed on Victory day.
It seems that people are not very identified with the Russian Federation - the general unhappiness caused by humongous corruption and general awful situation leaves russians in an identity crisis: the past of Soviet Russia is regarded as a failure against the west, while new Russia is synonym with corruption and mess. Indeed I'd stick with past

May 9th: Victory Day, a special moment for russians, remembering Soviet Nostalgia. This babushka is the icon of passion, patriotism and life, a soviet realist painting

In VDNH people almost can't handle the spring's burst of energy.
If I would be a wise man I would say: "Without winter you can't enjoy summer". Life is back.

Natural Moscow I

Natural Moscow II

Orthodox domes remind me of a time where things were done with heart...

This boy feeding pigeons is a real spark of hope

You see? Nobody is left alone: the lost pigeon just found Jesus!

Starring of this photo should be the church but, as often happens in Moscow, cars are taking over

Trams are not very respected here, this is one of the few moments where there are no car standing on the tram-rail.
It almost seems a tiny little cute town eh?

Little mistake in air conditioning planning. But yeah, who cares!

This almost unnoticeable, friendly and inoffensive bridge doesn't destroy the nice old building, it actually enhances its features. I love modern art in the city.
My guess? There are two government buildings at this junction, and the fat pigs working there decided to invest some million of public rubles to build this bridge, which allows them to avoid the river of cars below it.

Nothing special about this photo, indeed interesing decadent details can be spotted

The Boulevards are getting green and relaxing on the benches is very popular among russians

Surprisingly all this garbage is contained inside a garbage bin. This city never stop surprising me!

Chistye Prudy means "clean lake", and so it seems

Another beautiful artificial lake

Romantic suburbs for romantic people.

Free-lance market

Free-lance at rest

A good example of how things are done in Russia

Street art I

Street art II

Innovative illegal advertisement

Trance Mission detail

These suburbs remind me somehow of Central Park
I tried to count how many flats are in these huge buildings:
Right side: 17 entrances x 8 flats per floor x 9 floors = 1.224 flats!
Left side: still under calculation

Bottom view

All the cars of the people below are supposed to fit in these garages

Nice beer can - for more outrageous beer cans go here

I think it was sunday early afternoon - taken from here

Japanese restaurant with authentic japanese staff

Order and organization is a must for russians

Falling trees - Do not ever relax in Moscow, never.

A tourist in Moscow

2011-06-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

Ok it's true, my postcards from Moscow are a bit harsh, they don't give justice to the positive side of this majestic city.
Don't worry! Being a tourist in Moscow is a beautiful - still not easy - experience!
You'll be fascinated by the huge, never ending downtown, the amazing architecture and all the beauty in front of you; and from the city center you'll drive off to the suburbs, and discover the charming high-rise Soviet blocks. Have a good trip!

The Russians

2011-06-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

Russians match their stereotype: they are serious, cold, unfriendly, often drunk.
But that's not true. That's because we don't know how to observe.
They always say NO at first, always. The secret is to wait, wait 5 seconds and a new world will be revealed.
To understand Russians we need to learn the first Russian rule: be patient.
Queuing is first national sport in Russia, much more practiced than the second one (drinking), which indeed has countless followers. But Queuing is for everybody, queuing has no age, no limits; something they are real masters. In any kind of office, shop or place you go you will invariably find a fatty babushka incredibly slow in whatever she's doing; she acts as if time doesn't touch her. In front of her, in a small airless office, dozens of people with stone face wait, undisturbed, their turn.
The happiness you feel after you accomplish these missions (dealing, of course, in Russian) is beyond everything else.
The Mistery of Russians will never be revealed, not without patience.

Soviet Nostalgia

2011-06-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

It was "great", "horrible", "a dream", "a nightmare". "At least better than now".
That's the general opinion about Soviet times.
Vladimir Putin for the first time in his life had a moment of lucidity (I bet some of his literate advisors did the job) when he said: "Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants to restore it has no brains".
That's all quite true. Ok, let's DON'T consider the fact that Putin is a former KGB spy and HE is the one who actually restored the Soviet System, (by putting the same people that were in charge twenty years before and just changing the name of officies and descriptions on nameplates in the most important political and economical seats in Moscow), and he's THE one to blame for today's "highly fucked up economical, social and psychological" situation in the country.

In fact the huge revenues of the many Moscow's corrupted oligarchs - the one in charge of any kind of power - thanks to oil and gas exports makes them totally lazy, blind and unwilling to build anything resembling a decent, fair and respectable society.
This is the land of bandits.

Russia today (at least the Elite) is like a young 17 old dude who inherited 50 billion dollars as family heritage, and instead of sharing it, at least a bit, with his close friends in need, he's currently spending all this wealth on drugs and waste without having a minimum glimpse of thought about its consequences and the people who suffer because of his ego; just for the sake of showing that he's the "best".
So this is Russian Elite today.

For some reasons it couldn't be otherwise, given cultural and political history of the country, especially from the last 90 years, but also from the last centuries, still in search of a suitable and true identity.

And what about Soviet Nostalgia? Well... there's a big confusion in the mind of sober and not billionaire Russians, everything they knew and believed about who they are, who are the enemies and why things are in this or that way had been overturned, 20 years ago!
And in these 20 years NOTHING has been done from above to change the situation. No ideals, no directions (see the reasons above). The Elite is actually interested in having no changes: unlimited revenues, unlimited power, unlimited careless criminals in action. Russians have been keep silent and unable to move and think, while incalculable quantities of money has been stolen and waisted over their heads...
The little that people were trying to build from below, has been violently repressed from above.

That is, in very short, why Russians are so nostalgic of the past: because it represents their "true" identity.
And that's why they don't believe in it (and in themselves) anymore: because they know that their identity has failed.
Churchill defined Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" and he suggested only one possible key to salvation: "Russian national interest".
To study the Russian enigma is like a quest for psychological self.
That's why I'm so nostalgic, too!

Soviet bas-relief

Soviet mosaic

Karl Marx's Capital feature as masterpiece

Pravda - "The Truth" - May 10th 1945 - original version

CCCP manhole

Veterans in front of Bolshoe Theatre

Veteran's shop

Veterans queuing

Once upon a phone...

Soviet paraphernalia

Victory Day on May 9th represents perfectly the nostalgia: a massive celebration for the victory against the evil on WW2.
The defeat of Nazism is the last stronghold in the heart of Russians, the first and last victory they ever had in recent history.
Russians are truly proud to be Russian only on May 9th

VDNH on Victory Day

Nobody is missing at the parade: Stalin, a war veteran, a cheery non-russian and Kung-fu Panda!

Tanks on Tverskava ready to hit Shokoladnitza

A yellow woman holding Lenin and a gang of metal-heads/bikers/christians. Utopias are possible.

Metal-heads/bikers/christians gang detail

Digital filter sometimes enhance ideals

Cars

2011-06-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

Big, black, massive, that's how it has to be.
Moscow is a city where a Hummer is just a decent means of transport. It doesn't look big, here.
I suggest you this beautiful tutorial on how to drive in Moscow.
The art of parking in Moscow is something beyond the mind: sidewalks, zebra crossing, in the middle of a junction, anywhere; the road is yours, fellow driver!

8-lane avenue filled with big black and expensive.
The white minivan is a leftover from before the capitalist revolution

I don't understand these human beings, always trying to cross MY road... Who they think they are?

This is nice. Zebra crossing + junction parking.
Interestingly enough I saw the same car in the same position many times, on my way to work.
It must be a private parking

The rear view offers another perspective on this brilliant example of Moscow parking

I got furious when I've seen this cheap crap on THE private parking. Where is justice? Where?

Brilliant Double Zebra parking. See how dynamic and smooth the composition is well balanced

The poor pedestrian almost succeeded in crossing the zebra (on green traffic light), and at the last second this big black SUV managed to cut through and try to kill the victim with a world-cup-worth-tackle. The guy amazed can only surrender.

A bulldozer nicely parked and a Hummer shrinking in the corner on a wrong way down. So what?

Another jewel placed in the middle of a zebra crossing

Magnificent double zebra crossing parking

I was waiting for a marshrutka and almost didn't notice that this guy (later recognised as illegal taxi driver) was inflating the car tyre with a bicycle pump!

And right behind him I found this nice juxtaposition

The whole picture was a suburban piece of art

He's in a hurry, gotta buy Moscow Daily - nevermind if he almost killed that poor pedestrian

Official members proudly show off their status

I like old school romantic rockers

Especially with racing rims

Smooth double parking. When I went back the same alley the red car and the one behind were gone.
The white car was exactly in the middle of the road, alone, still. Unluckily my camera batteries were also gone!

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking

Sidewalk parking full blocking - solitary

Sidewalk parking full blocking - solitary

Sidewalk parking almost full scale

Sidewalk parking full jackpot

Sidewalk parking almost accomplished (50/50 parking)

Double sidewalk parking

On the other extreme Moscow drivers can be very precise and capable of "one-millimetre-to-the-sidewalk" parkings

This is borderline between a "one-millimetre-to-the-sidewalk" parkings and a "Double parking".
Anyway the car is right in the middle of the road. Brilliant.

I can't remember which car was parked and which one was trying to find a way out of this mess

This would be a normal situation everywhere, but when I saw this in Moscow a tear came to my eyes:
no sidewalk, no zebra, no big, no black.

I saw these orange trucks only once: they had to clean up roads and sidewalks to give space for a parade. Do you know, dear Moscow mayor, that in some country they give tickets to unauthorized parkings, and they make a lot of money out of it?
Oh yes you don't need money, you need brains. This is just a tip in case your oil and gas expire.

Massive roads are massively kept wet by these friendly trucks

No car plate, no problems.

No car plate, no problems.

No car plate, no problems.

No car plate, no lights, no problems.

The blue sticker says: HOOLIGAN. I don't think he's kidding or making it up, they are real fucking hooligans.
Ah, by the way, the photo is here because the car is parked right on the entrance of public park (only for pedestrians, as usually happens for parks).
How i wish to blow the tyre of this hooligan. Alas, he wouldn't understand why.

I was a bit shocked by the sight of this 2 (only!) wheel thing; maybe is connected to the Medslujba behing. Reassuringly a big black suv is in the scene. It wouldn't be Moscow otherwise. Nor Macao.

Another weird 2 wheeled object

This is not Sicily, it' still Moscow. Note about catering: Russians are mad about italian and japanese food. So mad that you cannot find an italian restaurant WITHOUT special japanese side menu, and viceversa. Possibly everywhere you can get pizza and sushi, best with a big glass of Kvass - I'm gonna open a Pizz'n'Sushi place anytime soon, but not in Moscow, somewhere else!

How I wish to own this car

The paper says: "Do not open and enter, this car has owner and all documents, I'm a student!"

He's a bit confused - Russia or America?

Safety hood lock

Safety door lock

Pimp my ride

Please, Pimp my ride!

A Volga pretending to be a Mercedes

The gray car is carefully placed at the entrance of the public alley, and the red got stuck. I noticed how drivers respect each others. The latter didn't make much fuss of it, he was actually studying a detour through the garden to reach his destination. He spent to much time thinking and I got tired and left the scene, already satisfied.

I saw this tractor after long time I've seen one. I think it would be actually comfortable and safe to drive tractors in Moscow traffic

The unfamous blue-lights, or blue-buckets: who owns them is more fucker of all the fuckers in town. If there are no rules in general for drivers, they can really do what the fuck they want.
A blue-bucket is a sign of membership to any flourishing criminal organizations in the city

The car slightly on the zebra is not the attraction here: the zebra itself ends nowhere, and you'll need to run over the 4 lane road in order to save your life!

This is interesting: a huge sidewalk in Moscow is usually home of cars for 70% and pedestrians + drunkers for 30%.
The government had an amazing idea: to get rid of 70% of sidewalks, in order to allow cars to be in the same place as they would anyway, without the hassle of climbing the sidewalk.
Isn't it genious?

Moscow landscape

Metro

2011-06-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

It's beautiful, deep, hot, fragrant. It's Moscow metro!
One of the few real prides of moscovites, each metro station is a beautifully carved piece of art, where soviet workers were proudly brought to their occupations by these majestic tunnel system unique in the world.
Here's a nice tutorial on how to use Moscow metro - that's exactly what I would say, just with a worst english.
Moscow is a world apart, its metro too, a jewel buried deep under the city.
All this magic doesn't prevent muscovites from NOT making any show of positive energy or emotions.
I look at them in the long, noisy and silent wagons, and I dream of somebody cracking a joke and breaking the silence. Nope.
Sometimes (sometimes eh not too often) I saw people holding hints of smiles on their faces, as if saying "how funny all these serious people here".
It's a tough life in Moscow, after all.

Alcohol

2011-06-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is not very nice.
And I'm sorry to say it, and I wish things could be different.
Few years back I crossed Russia on the popular Trans-Siberian railway, and the sight of people with beers in plastic bags getting ready for their journey (many beers and many bags), was quite funny, dare to say "folkloristic". Indeed it was great to get drunk in the platzkart with them.
Here's a bit different. Not because I'm getting old and setting up a family, but what you see here is what I mostly see in my backyard, from morning to evening. Spaces designed for children to play and people to relax become dwellings of rotten and putrified people, on public display 24/7.
Nothing against getting drunk, of course, I would be happy to join a bunch of guys and toast while singing USSR anthem; but this is real alcoholism. And of large proportions. It's quite depressing to see a middle age woman sitting on a bench consuming a 66cl beer bottle in few minutes, at 10 am. Same goes for groups of men sitting on public children playgrounds drinking their brains up until they become vicious monsters and growling move to a bench, perfect place to fall into a coma until next morning.

What makes my blood boil is that the aftermath of these joyful meetings are carelessly spread on the ground, bottles smashed against trees and cigarettes cemeteries all over the place.
Children cannot play freely on the grass because of broken bottles and human waste eveywhere.
There is no care for anything that happens outside their body for most Russians. No care for what is not owned by them. Public places are waste disposals.
Until migrant workers show up in the early morning and pick up all this trash and prepare the battlefield for another daily alcoholic war.
Once again, welcome to Moscow:

I think it was sunday early afternoon

It's difficult and dangerous to shot alcoholic monsters in action, what follows is a collection of aftermaths:

Migrant Workers

2011-06-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

They are from the -stan countries, former suburbs of the Soviet Empire (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan). The usually wear an orange jacket, often on a blue jumpsuit. They move to the big city looking for better living conditions and decent salaries, unimaginable in their country of origin. They do the lowest-level jobs, receive miserable salaries and live packed like sardines in often illegal overcrowded places; they work a lot, without any assistance, they are target of Russian on-the-rise racist groups and of the government itself, who's trying for some unknown reasons to get rid of them.

They are among the few people in Moscow who are doing something useful for the society: they clean up the mess, collect the human and animal vaste and trash, pick up the massive quantities of empty and often smashed alcohol bottles from the ground; they give a decent look to the town.
Every morning at 6am the parks nearby my flat look like there had been a rave party on every bench.
Thanks to these people after a couple of hours children can play in a (dare to say) clean environment.
So this is my way to thank them, for keeping it clean, making my russian experience a bit less harsh, hoping that Russians could learn from them to respect their surroundings.
And to use bicycles!

What's he doing?

Yes he's doing exactly what you're thinking: he' s picking minuscole fragments of broken bottles from the ground, with bare hands

For the last day of Ramadan (Muslim most important time of the year) Moscow Mayor unexpectedly approved - with massive security measures - a free celebration for the Moscow almost 2 million muslim population, which resulted as a massive pacific central asian invasion of the city:

This huge Mosque under construction since long time is a nice spark of hope for an utopic multicultural Moscow

Getting married, making babies... and redtape!

2011-06-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

During a lifetime there those experiences which... leave a trace!

There you are, dear Russophile, this is what would happen to you when you decide to get married and make babies in the beautiful MotherRussia:

First of all you will go to one of the many ZAGS around the city (I think for foreigners there's only one available), and you'll enter these useful safety gates:

You will be welcomed by this nice Babushka; first she will finish reading the interesting article in the gossip journal, only after that maybe she will look at you as if you're asking for the moon:

And then she will send you to the 2nd floor, 3rd door to the right: the office of this company "Rainbow Photo", which is ready to provide the best equipment for the best day of your life:

Yes, the most beautiful day of your life will be exactly like this!
So now you will sit down with this nice fatty woman and discuss all the detail of your wedding:

After you have chosen the photographer, what kind of setting you want for your wedding, which dress you are ready to buy, how many jewels you intend to dress up, which kind of limousine you want, where in the city you want the limousine to take you, in which spots the limo should stop so that you can have a nice photo session, and where finally you want the limo to drop you off, then you're done.
In order to obtain any of these services, of course, you have to pay.

You will be given a couple of days in which your wedding has the right to be, and you will happily choose one of them available on the tight schedule of the ZAGS.
You invite your friends, or don't invite anybody - that's up to you, and get ready!

This is the hall of your wedding room, where you will wait together with other 6-10 couples which are going to get married on your same day!
You'll go there with your passport, go to one desk to sign papers, to another to drop your rings, to another to sign other papers, to another to queue a bit and finally you're in!

Once in the official wedding room a nice Babushka full of makeup will chatter something in russian and you'll have to be awake enough to say "DA!" when she stops talking and looks at you smiling!
After you've said "DA!" and hopefully your wife as well, you're almost there: exchange rings, a kiss, a photograph, a stamp on your wife's passport and you're officially MARRIED!

CONGRATULATIONS!
Now you can go out and be the king of the city on your limo:
(The following photos are NOT my own marriage!)

There will be at least other 6 limos waiting in line, don't mistake!

And now your friends will gather around you...

And everybody will congratulate the bride:

Example of heavy-metal couple getting married:

And now the limo goes around the city:

And everybody is casual an happy, in style:

Of course the bigger the limo, the better! This one doesn't even fit my camera!

Easy eh?
So now you're a happy family, all you need is to make a baby:
The nine months of waiting will flow smoothly, and if you will choose a private clinic to assist you beware of the "terror-therapy": the doctor will tell you that MAYBE you or your baby have some problems, in order to make further examinations and further analysis, which you have to pay for. Only after several moments of paranoia and anxiety, and a lot of cash in their pockets, they will tell you that everything is ok!
If you choose free health system, well good luck! There is the queue, just sit down and wait for somebody!

And finally the moment comes...
Interestingly enough this is how Russian public health care system treat childbirth:
(here I'm talking about public hospitals - usually private clinics can make some exceptions to the following points (paying)):

From the moment your wife enter labours and you enter the hospital with her 3 nurses will take your wife and tell you to sit down there in the waiting room and wait.
Yes, you are not entitled to assist your wife in the most important moment of her life, and what's even more interesting is that you cannot see your wife and child even after the delivery!

The nurse will tell you that THE RULE is that the father cannot support the wife, cannot see her while and after the delivery, and for the following 2-3 days you will NOT be able to see them!
God knows why, but she will reassure you that they will take care of both your wife and your child

You will have opportunity to bring her food, once per day, of course not by person but through a babushka who will bring the plastic bag containing food and water to your wife.
Rules are beautifully summed up in this board:

INFORMATION:
Gynecology department open from 9.00 to 15.30 except Saturday and Sunday (admission to medical abortion is strictly on an empty stomach)
Discharge from hospital: every day from 14.00 to 16.00
Visits: from 17.00 to 18.45

DELIVERY HOUSE RULES:
When you visit follow this guidelines:
1 .Enter only in spare shoes
2. Enter with the children is strictly forbidden
3. Coats, hats, bags to leave in the cloakroom
4. Visit strictly from one person (FOOD ONLY PASS IN PLASTIC BAGS)

ALLOWED TO PASS :
1. Milk and dairy products (based on the date of storage)
2. Fruits and vegetables
3. Juices and mineral water
4. Cookies
5. Boiled meat, soup

FORBIDDEN:
1. Cigarettes
2. Canned goods
3. Sausages
4. Smoked food
5. Chocolate
6. Citrus fruit and strawberries
7. Cottage cheese (Tvorog)
8. "Jonathan" apples

And this will be the schedule that your wife will follow for these 2-3 days of imprisonement:

DAILY SCHEDULE
5.30-6.00 - Rising, morning toilet
6.00-6.30 - 1st feeding
6.30-7.30 - 1st room cleaning, ventilate room
6.30-7.00 - Medical procedures
9.00-9.30 - Breakfast
9.30-10.00 - 2nd feeding
10.00-12.30 - Rounds of doctors, medical procedures
13.00-13.30 - 3d feeding
13.30-14.00 - 2st room cleaning , ventilate room
14.00-14.30 - Lunch
15.00-16.00 - Quiet hour
16.30-17.00 - 4rd feeding
17.00-18.00 - Medical procedures
18.00-18.30 - Dinner
19.00-19.30 - Medical procedures
20.00-20.30 - 5th feeding
20.30-21.30 - 3rd room cleaning, ventilate room
23.30-24.00 - 6th feeding
24.00 - Evening toilet, sleep

And that's how you are going to see your wife after delivery, from the window OUTSIDE the hospital!

You must be lucky enough that she's on the first/second, maximum third floor, otherwise you'll be cut off from communicating

And that's what she will see from the window: messages from helpless fathers who write on the asphalt "Thanks for the baby" with a chalk.

All in all you will learn many things from this experience, and probably you will be a stronger man, once at home with your new family!

And after several days of fatherhood and motherhood all you need is to queue for several hours in a windowless tiny corridor in order to get your marriage certificate and your son's birth certificate (you'll have to endure two separate queues) :

And when it's your turn you will feel the heavy burden of the Russian red-tape on you like a gigantic stone, and you'll have to fill up an endless form before having the right to obtaining the birth certificate.
If you make any kind of mistake, you'll have to rewrite the whole form again!
But don't worry, you're almost there: and after many hour spent in despair and bewilderment, probably you will get what you need!

Yes you made it!

Marriage certificate

Birth certificate

The last and equally stressing step of this life-changing experience is to go to your lovely consulate, in my case italian:

And register both marriage and birth certificates (once you have apostilled and translated), so that your wife and kid are legally existing also for your country. You will have to convince your compatriot at the desk to NOT write the patronymic name for your son, and double check with your local municipality in your home country that fuck-ups in papers are as less as possible, so that hopefully one day both your wife and son will have an italian passport.... and that's it!

And now you can enjoy a life full of love and fun!

That's it! Big love and Big Russia!

Sparks of hope

2011-06-24T06:06:00.000-07:00

Moscow is an unforgiving teacher, and sometimes it opens to deeply satisfying experiences:

180 full rainbow!

A ladybug on her way to hope

Bicycles!

Kite is for life

No cars, only BICYCLES !!! This and more you can get in VDNH

This is not Scandinavia, it's Moscow!

Children happily riding in city center

Children + bicycle detail

Skating

Buddhist SUV

Such innocence...

Lotus-like flower growing in a swamp

Kindergarden detail

This shouldn't be very hopeful, but a public ashtray in Moscow is quite of a big event

Bird nest made out of a cigarette box

Rainbow

Boulevard

This tiny black puppy is traveling the metro

A child enjoys the alcohol-free game area for few hours

Fully functioning children playground

Feeding pigeons from more young...

... to less young

Animal friendly

Russia without violence

Pigeons in love

Videos about Moscow

2011-06-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

This is Russia

Moscow Timelapse - Kremlin

Moscow Timelapse - Night

Moscow Timelapse - Moscow City

Moscow Timelapse - Winter

Moscow Timelapse - Russia Nature

MIGZ - Art Festival

port-royal - the photoshopped prince (illuminated faces remix) by ILLUMINATED FACES

The Garage - Very nice place

Cyberbrothers.ru - Videoart

Kavko - Designer

Protey Temen - Designer

Tsar Podcast - YouTube Channel

RT Russia - YouTube Channel

Moscow out - YouTube Channel

Russia Megaprojects - Video

Soviet Utopia - Lumiere.ru - Video

Retro Moscow CCCP - Video

Junction in Russia

Russian-Untouchables.com

RapInfo

Enjoy!

Videos and Artworks

2010-10-17T02:43:00.000-07:00

///HallucinAsia\\\

Picasa Album
Flickr Album

www.lostconversation.com

View Lost in Asia in a larger map

Europe

2010-10-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

Parallel dimensions peacefully unfold their path, apart from each other and equally joining themselves in an infinite loop.

Stories of one dimension expand and overlap the next dimension, others are fully ignored; others are even judged, interdimensionally speaking.

A time will come where everything will be perceived with different eyes than now, everything will be outpaced. And then we will laugh of what has been and how much we cared for things that, in the end, have no value.

And little relevance has to know if the circle has been closed, the mission accomplished, the match over, if the prodigal son has returned and if and when he'll set sail again.

The last chilometer has been fun: with Iran i left behind a lot, literally a whole continent, psycologically a life session.
Crossing borders by walking always gives me the impression to go on the opposite direction where the world is going. This gives me balance.

I'm in Armenia, a nice country in the Caucasus. The first one to adopt Christianity as state religion. From where you can see Noah's ark, the real one, and you can dive in cognac and vodka and cheerfully enjoy skirts and female shapes, suddently forgetting what islam has slowly taught you.
I meet nice people with funny names as Gregor, Edgar, Adam, Moses, singing Toto Cutugno and Celentano, toasting to soviet-evangelical paradoxes in a land that by every mean is between Europe and Asia.

The goal for the Boy from the Orient is to go back to Moscow, to her who kept the flame burning and shone in the starry sky for 24 moons.

As Dante needing Beatrice and Odysseus Penelope, my Asya I had to get her back, literally crossing half the world.

I'm then in Georgia, certantly not Russia's best friend, and I try to sneak between Ossetia and Chechnya (quiet area ehh) hoping to pass unseen and get a last stamp on my passport.
A musician directed to Vladikavkaz, Russia, gives me hope, and there I am at 7 am on June 1st full of energy and teeth-chattering on the nice landscape offered by Caucasus hoping to be in Motherland in few minutes.
I was hoping good dose of Karma was with me, but the lesson there to learn was a different one: Patience.
Geopolitical reasons, wars and idealistic grudges prevent me from crossing the border, no discussions allowed. People keep on hating each other instead of leting life triumph.
The same day then, grumbling, instead of entering Russia I'll enter Turkey, in order to get a boat for the noth shore of Black sea. Funny world.

Soviet burocracy suffocating me, delays are accumulating and eventually after 14 hours hitchhiking, 48 on a boat and 29 on a train I'll enter triumphantly Red Square, 3 days later, with orthodox gospels and fireworks over the Cremlin, rainbows and sunrays!

New chapters in life are opening, private stories, everybody stories; in the end my story is your story, just with different places, names and characters

Now I'm about to enter in real and old Europe, after two years wandering around Asia.

As usual hithhiking makes the shift less shocking and rich in gradients; my familiarity with russian allows me, from the Caucaus to the Baltics aboundant conversations with truck drivers to whom I sound like a mad man.

Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Vienna, Rubiera.

Europe.
Order, silence, freedom, individuality, hygene, everything that has been before
Just like watching the same movie some years later, where you don't really care about the plot but you focus more on details.
People driving, people going to work, not interesting people, not them, not me.
Certainties, goals, fights, wishes, hopes, better future.
This is the plot what we aim to, given that everything else is already here, profusely.
The plot has to be re-edited, I would say.

I'm home. Me? Home?

I fall like an alien among people that used to be my fellows...
- Hey what's up, all right?
- Well yeah, all right!
- How was the travel?
SBAAAAM parallel universes opening up, whole lifetimes lived in a blink, the joy of being, living, adrenaline.
- Well yeah, not bad, nice time
- And now what are you going to do?
- Excuse me?
- And now what are you going to do?
- Excuse me?
- And now ....

And now I observe my fellow men, searching for that sensation, here as much as there, primordial perception.

And now I observe migratory phenomena with new eyes and I'm pleased to see so many different colours twisting in my hometown.
I listen to funny stories, to complaints. Who had been happy, after said it, and remained so?
I see generations following one another and the word integration expanding.
Many not-from-Reggio are way more from-Reggio than me.
People from Reggio are locking inside cars and houses while foreigners are legally taking over open spaces thanks to a new energy, unspoiled, asking for life.
I greet my small factions of china, indo, afro, arab, few words in every language and global smiles that make local realities small worlds spin around.

What happens now in Ulan Bataar, Beijing, Tokyo, Yangon, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Calcutta, Bombay, Tehran?

Parallel dimensions are intertwining, that's what happens.

Parallel dimensions that form the big parallelism called earth, around whom we spin overlapping, ignoring, judging.

Next evolutionary step is to stay part of these dimensions, rejoice within and not let form overlap, not ignoring the energy and not judging any results.

If nothing lasts forever, but everything is in constant changement, then also this journey in fact has no begin and no end, it's part of THE everything.
No more a circle but a spiral, endlessly twisting

To everybody his travel, to everybody his life. Enjoy.

Without focusing on past or future anymore, without wasting energy in defining and labelling.
An eternal present is surrounding us, forever, and it will always be.

Iran

2010-05-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

Iran

From the technicolor world of India I step in a world that seems black and white, but soon I will appreciate the conversion.

A geopolitical introduction seems mandatory, for all those worried I was going somewhere dangerous.....

First thing to say: Switch off the TV, Iran is an amazing country, overflowing with culture and hospitality!

All the crap that we hear on television about Iran it's all part of the FictionPolitics, a game set by the well-known leaders of the world, smart enough to keep the whole mass-media empire in their hands.

Iran is not a nuclear power, and most of all it's not a threat for humanity.

Between the two World Wars there was a country called Persia, whose president was elected, as we would say, democratically.
In 1953 CIA started a Worldwide Terrorist Politic made of coups d'etat made to overthrow governments that not follow the right rules. Everybody knows about the Vietnam War, many people know about the Allende coup in Chile, some know about US involvement in the domestic politics of the Congo and Indonesia. Not to mention Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But few people realize that this policy of violent interfence began in Iran, the first of the American Secret Expriments. America....

But I also stopped blaming US for all the crap happened in the last 60 or more years.
Of course I know it, but I also know that this game repeats itself in cycles: yesterday it was the British Empire ruling the game, today the States and tomorrow, quite probably, some billion of asians with almond eyes and brush-cut hairstyle.

Anyway thanks to that smart move the Yankee were able to start playing with oil together with the British cousins and hated-loved Russians, amazing eh?

Other smaller facts, chain reactions, lead to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 where Ayatollah Khomeini built this religious regime in which Iranians live today.

President Ahmadinejiad (whom I appreciate for never wearing a tie) it's no more than a pedina of the Islamic Supreme Leader, who actually does have a lot of power, but ironically plays the game of the US, who now have an easy easy enemy to point their nuclear and mediatic weapons to.

If foreign politics is just a cover, Iranians do suffer the closure of the country against the rest of the world, and everyday they face a regime who don't let much space to fantasy and immagination, especially for women.

A good 60% of Iranians are totally against the president, some 30% knows that the game is held by the Ayatollah. Very few manage to see the stuff from afar and see the American Imperialism as active part of the game.
Being Italian I'm not surprised by numbers, reasons and explanations, and especially of how come things don't seem to change.
Too many high positions are too confortable with this situation, alternatives are too hidden or weak and life has to be lived anyway, therefore beside the freedom of expression there's much beauty to discover in Iran. Indeed these problems make the discoveries real treasures.

Tehran is a sprawling megacity of some 14 million people, a huge city crowded with people and cars, traffic jams and pollution, but also nice parks and places to enjoy free time; on the metro you can easily reach the high mountains to the north and touch the hot desert in the south.
The walls of buildings are decorated with proper paintings depicting nature, fantasy, Islam and from time to time unfriendly battle-cries against USA and Israel; as usual in the contrast we find energy.
Life is fast and chaotic but there's always time for cinema, theatre and open air performances.
Iranians have a strong and deep feeling for arts, especially poetry.
I ride the 5 lanes-highways on friendly bikes looking at how modern and interesting is Iran today. Embargos are not enough to stop them. Some people come close and tell me softly "We hate Ahmadinejad" or "Bad government". Islamic guards are always at work, in disguise of course; never talk about politics, a deep glance is more than enough to understand.

Talking with youngsters and elders I realize that eveyday problems, of course, are not that far from our world; if we wrongly think that life here is hell, on the other hand most of the people think that outside the borders lies heaven, and chasing westernism is the only way people conceive the future. I've seen this attitude eeeeverywhere, we'll realize it too late, west is not heaven, we just have different problems, covered with a nice dress.
Luckily life goes on, and every day laughing over cups of tea sweeten up the problems

Of 75 millions of Iranians more than half are below the age of 30, and women are the ones pushing the limit of legality, they want to break the rules: if the rigid Islamic Law (Sharia) allow them to show only face and hands in public, it's fact that chador (the ghost-stlye black linen) stays always more often in the wardrobe and the manteaus become narrow and body-shaped

As result I walk in Tehran downtown and before my eyes I see rivers of pretty girls in jeans, high heels and fashion gadgets. Shy scarves cover their heads (otherwise it's prison), but blonde strands and modern hairstyles lean on delicate Persian faces full of make up and red lips.
I easlily imagine an ancient Persia and a future Iran full of life, today it's just a time bomb!

But I joy in living private life with Iranians and see how they enjoy it!
Evenings with persian traditional music played live at home, far from unwanted eyes where finally the veils fall down and we all sing and joke in happiness. We talk about poetry and freedom, dreams and life, God and revolution. Green is the colour of the revolution and green I see the future, green is in the heart of the people. Green. Green. Green. Green. Green.

The warmness, hospitality and friendship of eveybody is overwhelming, I'm invited for hundreds of teas and relaxed pic-nics. Amazing Iran.
These are Iranians by default standards, and foreigners deserve deluxe treat: everybody wants to make it clear that Iranians are not the evil depicted by medias, and I'm treated just like a son and I really feel at home.

Hitchhiking, I easily move around the counrty, always submerged by edible stuff, and I finally reach Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia that stole the heart of Alexander the Great who in turn stole everything else. Good or bad that was the point where Greek and Persian culture merged in a unique style, influencing culture and architecture of orient and occident.
It's amazing to be inside the history, sweating out of stones.

Zarathustra was the philosopher who started one of the first monotheistic religions on earth, some say even prior of Judaism. Ahura Mazda was the God whom rituals were dedicated, and worshipping natural elements such as fire, water earth and wind Persians were doing very good karma, from nature to nature, from ashes to ashes like the mithological Phoenix.

In Shiraz, Yazd and Esfahan I enjoy the glory of many Kingdoms of Persia, where Islam coming from Arabia blended joyfully with existing tapastries, bringing new air, new faith, holiness and depth.
It's a big pity that today we easily deny the our culture shares with Islam, ignoring its positives.

Allah is just an Arabic word meaning God, and according to what I learnt in India, God exists, indeed!
I enter a beautiful mosque in Yazd ggg and things gets clear: walls and ceilings are totally covered with small mosaics made of mirrored glass, perfecly cut in geometrically perfect patterns, typical of Islam.
The light coming in from windows of coloured glass is amplified by thousands of mirrors and becomes infinite energy.
I'm in a kaleidoscope of light, I see the light!
I sit barefoot on beautiful Persian carpets, I close my eyes and fall into the prayers and chants of the Imam, whose evocative voice is sometimes choked by tears coming out from inside. The depth and poetry of the words of the Qu'ran are able to touch the right chords and its strength is able to move mountains. Indeed Mohammed moved many of them.

Behind me a man is totally submerged in the prayer, he cries and sighs, in a trance. Divine power descends and takes hold of those who open up to him.
The visages of the worshippers are at same time serious, deep, clear and happy; I see in them what I have seen many many times in Asia: Divine consciousness.

This is the basic concept of every religion taught by the original enlightned messiah, either Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed: the private sphere. Sadly enough once these messiahes are gone and the sphere becomes public and dogmatized, the mystical becomes political. This is the only side I knew, the only side most of us grew up with. I hate politics.

Outside of the mosque, locals starts chatting with me sympathetically, asking about Italy, football and food; we slowly move toward religious topics and when asked "What's your religion?" I just quote what an Imam told me once in Burma (a strongly Buddhist country): "God is one, if you know God it doesn't matter how you call it, religion is one".
Some smile back and shake my hand, some are a bit skeptical and taken aback from my observation. With a honest Allah'o Akhbar I pacify everybody and somebody shows up with boiling tea and sugar cubes for everybody. I'm part of the crew!

Esfahan is stunning, the pearl of the Islamic world, somehow comparable to our Florence. Craftsmen work on silver and ceramics inside Caravanserais at least a millennia old and still standing.
Some artists are teenagers, others with tiny blue brushes are drawing nonchalantly splendid patterns on vases and frames. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue.
Inside a small shop two men are stiching black carpet with inscriptions from the holy Qu'ran green, gold and fluorescent yellow.
Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.
Gold. Gold. Gold. Gold. Gold.
Green. Green. Green. Green. Green.
Fatima, Mohammed daughter, is gifted to me on a piece of cloth. I feel deeply thankful.

The silk road was a long caravan full of spicies and crafts, linking orient and occident in a time where the cultural and social exchange was from both sides. Now it's my turn to keep the balance intact. I proudly accept this responsibility.

At sunset we climb of the rooftop sipping hot tea and smoking qualyan (nargileh), the sun slowly dies at the horizon of these beautiful desert towns surrounded by mountains...and emptiness.
Everything is orange.
Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange.

Peace.

This is how from an apparent black and white i managed to find colours in Iran.
If not as explosive as in India, of course, here the whole experience is a real challenge just like finding a treasure: following steps, treading my own, reading, studying, being helped by people, being confused by people, feeling amazing feelings. Feeling alive. Once more.

Amazing Iran.

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Iran

North India

2010-05-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/NorthIndia

There are two types of people in the world: those who have been to India and those who haven’t.

Never really cared about this thing told me somewhere some time ago, but after visiting Bombay, Calcutta, Varanasi and the most of this amazing sub-continent, i do strongly quote this.

Travelling itself is an incredible experience, all countries are unique,but India, dear my friends, is the most awesome place on earth.

Welcome to Calcutta, the city of joy.
Calcutta is a city with a heart, with a soul.
I get to Kolky in the afternoon, right after a storm, and I start another socio-cultural experience, the ones you can only find in Asia, and each one is stronger the previous, more real, more true.

The smell of humanity saturates the air, from open air sewers – if they are there, to the clouds that follow the swarms of people that keep on accumulating at the railway station; an apparent chaos that hides the essence of Indianity. Everyone is busy with something and everyone has his role in creating the expressionist painting I enjoy, my senses maximized.

I don’t even notice these porters, serious and sweaty carrying around humongous weights on old and crappy carts, running through the traffic jungle of ancient yellow cabs – awesome ambassador in great shape – and new and boring cars.
Rickshaw carried by slim runners in dothi and undershirts are jumping in the jams successfully bringing some people home, with bags full of vegetables for the dinner and flowers for the pooja, the constant, humble offerings Indians make to the panoply of the Gods .

Through a nice iron bridge human rivers are flowing, twisting in every direction like a loop, accompanied by a cacophony of horns and whistles, policemen yelling, hoping to earn a bit more baksheesh with some bribes. Street sellers assuring me that their dirty, dusty wares are just what I need.
I get to flowers market, right next to a temple with ghats that touch the river where worshippers take their daily baths.

The market reminds me of a mud war field, huge flower necklaces yellow and orange sleep like snakes inebriated with the noise; dark shapes move quickly filling up newspapers with colored powders, whose quantity forms a nice multicolor mountain range in a world where we sell and buy colours.

Street business and its laws count much more than street and safety codes. They just go on in their amazingly neat shirts and pants; shoe shiners happily clean up the leather wearing the feet of office men, who in turn comb their hair proudly showing their social status.
Having nice chats with these gentlemen I see the goodwill and positive attitudes, rare stuff in faraway western markets. From these guys I learn the three precepts about India: “In India all colours you can find”, ”Always remember India is n.1”, and, most of all, “In India everything is MAXIMUM”

Liters of boiling chai are enjoyed at every crossroad. Each chai is a sweet intense experience that pushes the soul away from the earthly state high up, where the peace of senses rests. But with rupies five you can’t go that far and after minutes two we are again in the human limbo fighting for spaces.

Groups of boys happily wash themselves with water from wells on the sidewalks, pumped up by kids whose play brings great joy to those above.
Countless human specimen are sleeping anywhere at any time, not bothered by the mass of life that flows thunderously at their side. A man uses the sidewalk as a pillow.

Meanwhile I notice that roads became wider and I’m on Calcutta’s Wall Street, the first capital of the Raj, the Jewel of the British Empire. Buildings are Victorian-style, some of them really impressive symbolizing a special feeling among Britishers, Indians and this city.

Relative to India, at least, the center of Calcutta developed some civic sense: I pleasantly notice, amazingly, trash cans on the streets!

The shops’ billboards and the shopkeepers themselves seem to be there forever, the former dusty and vintage, the latter busy in fighting dust that swarms like mosquitoes. The paint and the writings hand-painted on the walls are other splashes of color and artistic expressions, that overshadow the modern digital prints flattening the atmosphere.
Each wall is a perfect photographic set, each face is a perfect model and each moment is a perfect movie plot. No ticket is required to enjoy these life episodes that happened in Sudder Street between locals and tourists, the first in normal daily mode and the latter as charmed as me by the craziness happening before their eyes: barber shops set up next to big pot of food cooked by boys on the sidewalk, poles moving in the ether, bikes with five people on board driving through needles’ eyes, clouds of mosquitoes that sometimes let us spot a sweet-store inside them, gangs of cows, dogs and goats that just don’t care and live their lives roaming the overcrowded streets.

A group of Japanese is stuck in observing an itinerant piece of modern art quite popular in India: hundreds of electric wires endlessly twisted, hanging desperately from old and suffering poles.
In their Japanese perfection they will be asking themselves how come nothing is blown up yet; thinking of a regulator plan for this country I smile and I get another chai, toasting to India once more.

And in the night we play drums in the streets, we make bonfires and party; everyday in India there’s a festival, and this one I’m in is one of the biggest: Holi, the festival of colours!

Shbaaaang explosions of colours in the land of colours, taste buds in tilt and maximum enjoyment for eyes, ears, nose, hands and feet. The three precepts learnt before are painted on every smiling face, today there’s no rule and men and women happily play splashing water and colours on their semi naked bodies. My holy (and holey)t-shirt is eaten by the fire’s flames and we all dance barefoot in brotherhood.

Sure I wasn’t there in Woodstock, but these Technicolor scenes are a sober acid: we are all hippies, Jimmy Hendrix is reincarnated in India!
A deaf-mute guy, called FriendFinder, speaks everybody’s language – body language, and he’s the center of life in Sudder street where the exception is the rule.

Many people stay under beneficial sphere of Calcutta as long as possible because the energy here is objectively touchable. Dear my Kolky!

With my heart full I leave the city and I spend some time at the feet of Himalayas between Darjeeling and Sikkim, deep into Tibetan Buddhism, prayer flags who bring the words of Buddha in all directions through the wind and prayer wheels whose ethereal spinning helps in making good karma. It’s always amazing to be up in the mountains breathing nature and energy.

A short stop in Bodhgaya, under the famous tree where Siddharta Gautama, a disillusioned Hindu noble man looking for answers about the reason of sufferings, meditating reached enlightenment becoming Buddha, whose teachings of love and compassion are the solid base on which the whole oriental culture developed afterwards.

And finally I reach the cradle of life, Varanasi, the eternal city.
The river Ganges reaches the ghats where thousands of pilgrims are making cleansing ablutions. The fire of Lord Shiva burns under Manikarnika, where from the last 2500 years every day hundreds of dead bodies are burned offering Mokhsa, liberation, to the soul whose ashes enter the holy Ganges.
This is the ultimate goal for a Hindu: escaping the cycle of life and reincarnations, Samsara, that relegate the soul to a mere human life. Once obtained Mokhsa the soul is granted eternal salvation, breaking the manifestation of life in human form, too much contaminated by material ties to achieve pure spirituality.

To be here and to live the truth of these rituals is a true lesson about consciousness: death is not the end of life, and being scared of it shows an immature approach to life.

In the west our fear of death - a strongly christian concept - terrifies us and leaves us without explanation when this tragical event strike our small lives, as if we don’t know that our cycle is made of begin and end.

The earthly experience is just a small moment of the huge cycle of life.
The sadness and the rage that overcomes us when we lose somebody is also a form of energy that we should lean to control, and teaches us that we should get the personal best out of this life. About next life, I really don’t know.
It’s always the hardest lesson that makes us grow up.

From my rooftop I observe to the west old Benares, in the middle the holy river and on the other side the valley of death, where life fades away ritually, while ironically the sun rises from east every morning bringing new life.
Never ending Samsara.

My guru (Shiv from Woodstock!) is my key to understanding this city where life has a totally different meaning than anywhere else on earth, where you can live for a moment, in the present or 2000 years ago, or even stop the concept of time itself; where death and life are two sides of the same coin.

Tourism has in part conditioned the eternal city, well used to host pilgrims for the last millennia. But the aura of respect for Varanasi is way too big and powerful, nobody can scratch it.
Looking at the ghats in the silence of night or sunrise, walking through narrow alleys saturated with palpable deities highly worshipped by the community; attending magical poojas where the Brahmins play with fire and talk to the divine following precise and mysterious rituals, something moves inside me and I have the impression of elevating to a superior human state of comprehension.
it’s very difficult to see beyond Maya, the apparent reality, but the power is all inside every single soul, Atman; the challenge is to control its energy. Everybody can fly. Magic is just a shift of thought. Too much charas?

Varanasi is the perfect summary of Indian spirituality, something that for a western eye might seem ‘too much, incomprehensible and untouchable’, but the city carries real signs of something that we’ve lost irreparably, something that the new man, as said, has to take back in order to not lose the whole path we’ve been through.
Soul my friend, where is our soul?

With the soul in my pockets I enter Taj Mahal in Agra, still a splendid live vision far beyond photos and posters. A perspective game makes incalculable the space between me and the Taj: now I can touch it, now it’s a mile away. I have fun in watching the interactions of rich western tour groups of 50 50-years-old people with videocameras hanging from the neck and a flock of Rajastani pilgrims, with turbans and earrings grazing barefoot in the crowd, followed by wives wrapped in colorful sarees and home made jewels. Beautiful. Far away worlds skim over each other, sharing humanity.

In Rajasthan indeed the scene is repeating with turbans and sarees filling up the alleys of forts and towns as a background for the most typical postcards from India. I’m a little bit in a hurry though because in Haridwar a huge event is calling me: Kumbh Mela, the biggest religious festival on the planet.

On april 14^th, lucky day for astrologers, I was among the 5 millions pilgrims that bathed in the holy waters of the river Ganges (again), running fast from the Himalayas to the Indian plateau.

It’s the festival for Babas and pure people. Babas are these men who quit all the material ties with the world and live a totally spiritual life. During Kumbh Mela worshippers from any corner of the sub-continent pour in and pay homage to them acquiring credits. Religion and cash have always found a way to cooperate in human history and this festival becomes the money box for Babas, who make of spirituality their portfolio and of wisdom their business.

I’m in Delhi just before leaving India, pondering about how much this experience is one of these personal key points, understood only by who tried same feelings and seen same things, and for a moment touch upon the untouchable.

In the city spirituality remains a personal matter, and even though New Delhi has a modern and civilized character it happens that in Paharganj, the streets who welcomes every tourist and pilgrim approaching the capital, there’s pure madness. The order of the government is to smash down all the abusive and crappy buildings to leave room for a new big clean avenue full of hotels worthy the new India. The way things work in India is to give nonsense orders to keep the people moving; hence the whole Paharganj is destroyed in just one night, with bulldozers and people hanging from balconies smashing walls with hammers and blowlamps.
It seems the end of an era, the end of old India that must keep up the pace with modern times. How impossible all this!

What will happen if and when the Indians will accept the pact with the devil? Our soul is going to be sellout?

If the Amazon forest is the lung of the planet, India is its soul. We are destroying our lungs and covering our soul with a new and out of place dress; right or wrong it might be, this is where we are going.

But it’s ok man, no complaints.
Positive and negative energy will keep on intertwining in an infinite loop.
Everything is perfect, in its imperfection.
I’m not scared, because as Buddha said before leaving this planet: “We have all the teachings we need, now it’s time to strive for our own salvation”.

Of the two kinds of people describes at begin, maybe the former have some more instrument to understand and accept the present human condition, both in global and spiritual form.
The latter probably don’t really care, rightly.

For who will survive the apocalypse of 2012, we will find in 2013 at Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, to open a new chapter of human history.

So we have a bunch of month to enjoy this planet!

Burocratic problems don’t allow me to go through Pakistan, hence I’m flying to Iran!

Goodbye, Unbelievable India.

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/NorthIndia

South India

2010-02-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/SouthIndia

No adventures but lot of culture. I'm getting old.
Everything we define as oriental today is born in India, thus I found my place in the shadow observing and studying history, millennium twisting in Hindu, Buddhism, Islam and Hi-tech.

I Started from Ellora and Ajanta, where the first Buddhist monks came here few centuries after the teachings of Siddarta Gautama aka Buddha up north.
Here the monks dug caves and meditation places, where they could detach from the outside world and follow their guru’s teaching without distractions. These caves soon became places of worship and Buddhists followers start pouring offers looking for earthly salvation.
Big Buddhas hidden in the caves, with little sun light, enhance the mistery of the research of these monks, highlight the thankfulness to the planet, looking for answer to impossible questions.

As time goes by Buddhism and Hinduism mixed up and I need solid basis to understand what happened.

Nothing more solid than this massive temple totally dug in the rock, a huge hole where an amazing temple spurs out in honour of many Hindu deities, first of all Lord Shiva, his sons and wives in many avatars and reincarnations.
Thousands of Indian tourist perfom amazing pilgrimages and school trips to learn that long ago their civilization was over the top in the global ranking.
Most of them is making offering to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and money, but still Ganesh with his elephant head is well respected.

After this travel in time I jump off Goa with its sandy beaches and full moon parties and I land in Kerala, deep south.

All of a sudden I'm in the world of theater and Teyyam, spectacular performances in the middle of the night where ancient rituals are still carried on with amazing colours and huge masks.
People jumping into fire, weird and amazing tattoo all over the body, never ending drum beats and and hypnotic chants...
The atmosphere is quite magical and while I’m asking myself how and why this people is so much into it, a huge red dancing mask gets in front of my eyes and surrounded by yells of the crowd he jumps over the fire to show that pain and evil can be destroyed with the power of the mind. Pretty cool man!

After some more dancing I get to Tamil Nadu, where Hindu temples are so beautiful, colorful and full of deities that it looks like a modern card game where every 8 years old boy knows everything about the hundreds of characters.
Here pilgrimages are serious stuff, or at least is fashion because for every statue there’s a festival and for every festival there are thousands of pilgrims that cross the state to pay tribute to be part of the thing, from newborn babies to over-ninety elders everybody is wearing amazing colours.
It’s Pooja-time, or time of prayer, and a long queue of hardcore Hindu is pushing at the entrance of the temple looking forward to get Darshan, or blessing, and earn some Karma-point for the future.
The moment is quite important for everybody, a small mistake might fuck up the whole pilgrimage, and I can see some tension in the rounded dark faces with big black eyes of these Tamil, whose hairstyle is constantly perfect, I do envy them.
We’re getting closer to the center of the temple, we put some rupees in the trunk of an elephant (true!) who, full of flowers and body painting, bless the pilgrim by touching softly his head with his long and funny nose.
Finally in front of the main hall, where non-Hindu are not allowed, I see from outside the offerings to the Brahmin: flowers, milk, coconuts and cash, people buy their credits; Shiva thanks and wink his third eye.

Once outside everybody is more relaxed, barefooted and happy we all get a nice lunch Indian-style, we eat with hands over palm leaves, we drink hot chai made by acrobatic bartenders and we share every inch of space, with a super-loud music adding some exotism and positive mood.

Once again I notice how many religions live all together: for every temple there’s a church or a mosque, in a loop of prayers and worships

As usual the foreigner is welcomed, and thousands of times I answer same questions: ‘Which country do you belong? – Where is your house? – What place? – Good name sir? – You America? – Africa?

Hilarious discussions of every form with funny italo-indian accent, this is a sample between Marco and Ramesh:
R: What is your name?
M: Marco
R: Which is your country?
M: Italy
R: Oh very nice, what is your age?
M: 27
R: Are you marriage?
M: No, not yet, are you married?
R: No, not yet, I will get marriage in 2016
M: How do you know this?
R: Because... Oh yeah i know in Europe you believe in love marriage and you don’t believe in arranged marriage... (giggling) my family knows me very well and find a good wife for me and I will marry her when I will be 26, and I know she is be my perfect wife because my parents choose her for me, because they know me very well, and they know what is good for me, so I don’t have to worry!
M: Wow, are you sure about this?
R: yes yes for sure, and you? How do you believe in love marriage? If you find a girl and you tell her that you love her, how do you know that she loves you? How do you know that your marriage will be succesfull if you don’t know this girl?
What is the percentage of succesfull marriage in your country? Eh? Eh?

I’m puzzled, technically numbers are on my friend side!

Actually south Indian women are a misterious topic, hidden behind sarees and shiny jewelry, their tender figures are mimetized in an over-coloured ambient.
The heritage of Hindu and Muslim history puts walls between men and women, and arranged marriage are as common as chapati, hence my indian coeval in gangs holding hands live their day hoping for the glory to come, listening Bollywood music from cellphones, drinking sweet fruit juices and samosas, waiting for the day their father picks up the right wife!

India is land of messiah and among hundreds of peoples some distinguish for wisdom and savoir-fare: the well known Sri Sai Baba, Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Osho bring their name to communities where global hippies come looking for a world that outside is not even in the dreams of people anymore... who would be happy in 2010 of only spirituality and harmony?
It’s nice to see that in a small context these experiments work, more or less, well, keeping alive the flame of the soul.

After Madurai and other holy spots in Pondicherry i smell french air and in Chennai I can’t even breathe, then i move northbound, Andra Pradesh.

Hyderabad is the Hi-tech capital of new India.
The old city center is a muslim twine of nice mosques, full black burkas, punjabi, goats and street business.
Anupam brings me with his bike to the new city and everything changes: streets become wide, clean, new buildings all around, gigantic billboard ads, bars and clubs western style with people dancing and pretty girls yelling their eagerness to modernity.
The new India, in the little space leftover, has its good card to play.

Funny to notice that we, westerners, come to India to know what we are losing: the past, the history and an ‘unplugged’ life, traditions on the edge of oblivious that were the center of past civilizations, lifestyles that now we call hippy just because they crush against the fast-esponential-modernism sponsored by the west.
New Indians here are born, sure they won’t forget what they’ve seen for so long and they've learnt the lesson pretty well: eating books of trigonometry and e-marketing they are building the other side of India, the one who looks ahead, that wants to be n.1 in the world, that leaves the past in its place and builds the future somewhere else, keeping the two world separate but linked.
Poverty is wide spread on the streets, but new indians are thirsty for revenge and their dreams come before everything else, now that everything is possible.

India and China are defining the new globality that no more can be called westerner, because in their being indian and chinese lays what sounds exotic and old to a western eye.
Thus our asian brothers are born with oriental traditions and grew up with western televisions; in the contrast lays the energy... I have no clue about the final result but I feel that the new man has to be re-born in Asia to find new boosts.

Everyday is heaven and hell, from amazing smiles to deathbound inermi, India won’t leave you aphatic. Life goes on.

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/SouthIndia

Bombay

2010-01-14T02:17:00.000-08:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Bombay

I entered Bombay on a motorcycle, by night, when the city is trying to get sleep.
From the airport down to the heart of the city, my bro Fahad (Yo!) drives me steadily through this new world, gives me detailed and precious info about the city and the whole country; I am struck, my mouth wide open while riding through overlapping streets witnessing fainting buildings, mountains of rubbish and people sleeping everywhere.
It’s nice to be in the game again.

Bombay by night is almost silent, there’s no traffic, but there’s always people in the streets. Many set the street as their home, the street belongs to everyone.
Bombay is to India what New York is to the States, and in this land of opportunity everybody plays his own cards, there are no rules, the smartest man rules.
It’s a run for gold, like 19th century California, Far West atmosphere impregnated in decadent facades of untidy buildings. Soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

From time to time some nice colonial building comes up, erasing distance and time, reminding of the history passed down here.
If you won’t judge people by their clothes, same goes for cities.
Bombay has many stories to tell, from the sidewalks to the high grounds of mushrooming skyscrapers.
In a week a whole slum might be smashed down by bulldozers and give room for residential areas for the new generation of high class Bombaikers, or instead a commercial area with multiplex cinemas, including, can you believe, toilets and garbage bins!

The city lacks a proper sewage system and running water but its citizens are engineers and robotics supporters, scholars and expert business men.
Bollywood tells the stories of rich families in musical style and the powerful local mafias compete for areas and real estate with skyrocketing prices; the gap between sci-fi billboards and real life running below is so big it’s almost grotesque, unreal.
In this crazy theatre there’s room for every kind of person, from hardcore religious followers to heavy metal fans; Indians are people who believe, people who give their hearts, people who respect each other.

A 5 minute stroll in some areas of Bombay makes an amazing ethnical cultural trip, Indians from every state (many and quite different) mess up their turbans in an endless noise of horns and screaming people who work and struggle among animals and garbage, trying to make their livelihood.

I see traces of British colonialism, in tea cups flying over the streets, in dialogues with experts in every matter, in business-oriented people and in an experienced atmosphere, where life breathes through every pore and hits you if you’re not careful, no wonder I got a rickshaw right on my face!

Bombay is the outpost of the India who, together with China, threatens western superpowers. Seen from here it looks like a joke but we know that nowadays math is just an opinion and stats and numbers are only a mirror for speculators and entrepreneurs.
It’s true though that tycoons exist, and rich areas are getting less Indian and more global day by day; but I’m looking for true stuff and I prefer to sweat my day out with the middle class, who dreams villas and cars but eats street food and combs itself, Travolta style, in public latrines.

I lived the daily struggle to get to work, hours lost among overcrowded trains and insane traffic jams stuffed with chaos, animals and smog; reaching the office is the hardest part, working is nothing!
Every time you get into this urban zoo something unpredictable is about to happen: cows in the middle of the street, people who run after the bus and fight their way in, goats on car roofs, street sellers with useless deals catching your sleeve, cabs that crash carts pulled by humans and the tribal rhythm of horns dazzle you and fogs your senses. I love Bombay.

And what about the smells… Well let’s say that my stink-o-meter is broken since long time, but in some moments of weakness I missed the smells of dear China!

Nobody complains, the air is soaked with life. This is the Bombaikers’ world and here they look for their 15 minutes of glory, everybody here is what they want.

Apparently many of them are happy with very little and live street life as their most precious treasure, living in the center of it but at the edge of society…
On the sidewalks you find those who put their self-pity at stake as a profession; those who hold a kid on their lap just to earn some more rupees.
The day goes by with smog, stink, smiles, tricks. And when night comes, the mother folds out a sheet on the dirty ground, puts down some bags containing her life and sets the bed for herself and her son. The kid plays with some random object found on the ground.
They both look calm, at home, the wheel of life keeps on spinning as a ritual; I see this scene without any empathy and I ask myself what are they thinking, what do they want, what makes them laugh and cry?

I lift my eyes and I see the whole square is jammed with same stories.
I don’t know when all this begun and I don’t even think there has to be an end: the concept of human dignity here is reset, after some time spent in India you learn to neutralize your standards, to blow out the bubble you always lived in, because these people are too many and 8 of them would cheerfully squeeze in one place in the sun!

But yeah that’s fine, everything makes sense on this planet, put in the right context.
After saying this I realize that in the center of Bombay, in a few square meters, hundreds of people sleep on the street sharing every inch of dust, when on the other side of the sidewalk two 5 stars hotels spur out, with shining limousines, lights and smiling people choked in their party dresses, out of place like a shit on a golden tray.

One minute back I was thinking of the poor people who, by necessity or by choice, see the world from the ground; now I’m thinking who gets out of a limo and throws his glance down there where the untouchables are… and as usual there is me, standing in the middle, observing these lifestyles.

This is my Bombay, where I spent a month, after the Korean lethargy; and after a surprising Christmas spent in the tropical Emilia Romagna I’m ready to live this India, so much awaited and so much craved.
The subcontinent is where MahatMarco, looking for questions instead of answers, continues his journey.

Yo!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Bombay

Korea

2009-11-25T02:23:00.001-08:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Seoul

South Korea is a perfect resume of Asia: you can find some chinese roughness, some japanese politeness, a siberian inclination to alcohol, a language even more unpronounciable than mongol, good and super-spicy food in south-east asian style.
Add to this a good number of religions living together and the fact that Korea is a divided country for political-military reasons and you get an interesting book to open up and study.

The idea of hitchhiking Seoul - Pyongyang was very fascinating, but sadly I've been refused the access into North Korea... The troops of Kim Il Sung in fact aren't really eager to let anybody in their country, therefore I had to content myself with an organized tour on the border that divides North and South Korea, the paradoxical DMZ, demilitarized zone, in true american style, plenty of yankee soldiers trying to handle the thorny situation playing eye-contact games with the North Koreans on the other side, trying to avoid diplomatic incidents that would possibly lead to World War III.
I actually stepped into North Korea, maybe 1 meter from the border, at I felt quite proud.

What I heard of North Korea is that the poor civilians are ruled with a whip and constantly bombed by a massive propaganda, and they are brainwashed to the point of seeing a deity figure in the eternal leader Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Yong-Il.
Quite often it means inhuman tortures for the rebel prisoners and starving conditions of the population, whom, at least, have something to believe in.
In the few best cases the party is open with the famous Mass Games, huge parades where the best athletes of the country form spectacular synchronized choreographies in true socialist spirit. This is their way to be thankful to their leader. A real pity for me not being there. I also wished to say Thank you Kim for keeping a little suspance over the planet with some nuclear weapon every now and then... Indeed he's a real No Global!

On the way back from that tour I was asking myself with which kind of brainwashing we are living: maybe a bigger one, more colorful and apparently more free.

Seoul is definitely not Tokyo, alas, but here I was that day and here I pressed the pause button.
Pause from travelling, pause from life, for 2 months.
I placed my backpack under the bed and I sat on a table, I opened negotiations with Photoshop and all the happy suite... I went back into the digital world, and after some sleep I ejected myself to India!

Hehe!
Eventally I'm leaving east Asia, with a special chinese gift:

I'm closing this short post with my favourite playlist of the moment
(special thanks to David and Asya!):

- http://ochremusic.com/music/
- http://www.myspace.com/ulrichschnauss
- http://www.myspace.com/movingmountainsmusic
- http://www.myspace.com/cliffordgilbertocollection
- http://www.myspace.com/tycho
- http://www.myspace.com/dntel
- http://www.myspace.com/mumtheband
- http://www.myspace.com/shogunkunitoki
- http://www.myspace.com/rovoofficial
- http://www.myspace.com/hudsonmo
- http://www.myspace.com/djkentaro
- http://www.myspace.com/hammockmusic
- http://www.myspace.com/tommyguerrero
- http://www.myspace.com/thenational
- http://www.myspace.com/m83
- http://www.myspace.com/uptheroyals

Yeah punk-rock is still the attitude, but the music gets softer and electrified, music for the soul.
See you in Bombay brothers!

Japan

2009-09-12T08:05:00.001-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Japan

In the shade of a Bonsai tree I trace back the Japan Adventure, I scratch my eyes to check if I’m still dreaming…

Dreamland experience, metropolitan tale. It should have been 2 quick weeks, in the end I spent a month and a half in this enchanted world.

Land of samurai, geisha, ninja, sumo fighters, zen Buddhism, yakuza and videogames, I fell in love with japan, I rediscovered the value of friendship and brotherhood, I twisted night and day and I left Tokyo I don’t even know why, a bit like "I leave you ‘cos I love you too much…"

The expectations of japan had been totally fulfilled and they went further, after this journey into the future now it’s hard to go back to the present.

What mostly charmed me about Asia is the juxtaposition between rich and poor, in Japan the axis moved to the dichotomy new-old, leaving somehow equal the balance soul-matter.

Able of terrifiying atrocities in east-Asia during WWII, at home the Kamikaze Japanese are nice, welcoming and cheery, the atmosphere is constantly Truman Show-style: you always feel like everything is too quiet and something is about to happen, old women take their dog out with harrowing calm and the massive politeness sounds like a trap to the gaijin... they find themselves more at ease dealing with robots than with humans, in both cases politeness rules: hundreds of bows and endless greetings for each meeting, that’s why now my back hurts!

The relationship human-robot led to several problems about identity and self-consciousness among themselves and towards the rest of the world; in recent years these humans evolved pretty quickly, whether still difficult to see what’s happened in those brains the Japanese seems to have find their harmonic balance between brains and gigabytes.

Talking toilets with warmed bowl and built in 5 speeds bidet, autobus and vending machines equipped with soul, machines that do everything, just like anime robots each machine has a Japanese inside who control it, cheers and suffers together for good or bad business. Each Japanese indeed is an android: programmed to not fail, maximum efficiency. Jap- Matrioska.

Approach to life is pure Final Fantasy-style, the border between real life/videogame is blurred: the goal in general is get to next level, whichever world it would be. They work a lot, aseptically get drunk and erase themselves in pachinko - slot machines houses - following a monotonous ritual; they buy dreams and services, from love hotels to hostess bar there's no tabu, but a complicated system of relationships aiming to keep honour clean and tidy.

Report Japan it’s hard because you end up writing usual stereotypes, all of them true, the one we learnt watching Anime cartoons when we were young… to try something new I slide the paper door, enter barefoot in the wooden restaurant, I pass through the eye-level curtains, I sit in front of the chef that welcomes me with a towel on his forehead and close eyes, he starts cooking at supersonic speed sushi, sashimi, tempura and teppanyaki; I place some wasabi on my plate and cheer up with sake and Suntory (the boss of them all) beer and coffee to the story of Japan in music:

“At the edge of the world there’s an island, where the sun rises first, Nippon.

This island has been so remote and untouched for centuries, traditions so rooted and unchanged that when the future approached these shores nobody could tell what exactly happened in the mind of this people, the Japanese, who were able to take the best out of the incoming influences, and shaping it as they wanted; they’ve been able to take the future from outside and make it for themselves, making it part of the thing, making it Japanese.

On this island the future speaks Japanese, the music speak Japanese.

Technology was an alien monster, and they took it and make it speak their language.

In the 21^st century in this country tradition and future walk hand in hand, smiling at each other, completing each other.

It’s no surprise to see in Tokyo, the busiest city in the world, a beautiful Japanese girl wearing traditional kimono walking on the street with long hair wrapped on her head, some ciuffo leaning down the neck, and huge headphones on her ears pushing electronic music, giving her tempo and stamina in this chaotic and charming world.

It’s not about showing off, it’s not about fashion, music is rooted in the mind and costumes of the Japanese, and they use technology in a sublime way to enhance the spirit and to make traditions go on, walking towards the future.

When you get to any of the hundreds of metro stations you are welcomed by beautiful melody; when you go to a techno festival you feel the rhythm coming from the ground, and you see people dancing lightly and softly. Politely you walk through the crowd, find your own space where you can dance and express yourself; soon you realize that you are just a part of it, you are building the atmosphere together with thousands of youngsters that truly believe in what they dance, they truly believe in music.

Please don’t talk to anybody, just enjoy the beat and let emotions come first, just like anybody else is doing right here right now.

And when the Dj lift up his almond-shaped eyes from the console and greets the crowd with one hand and a beam of light you scream back with your throat open wide. The Dj gets the answer, we like his music, he can push the edge a bit further.

You walk again, you see crazy people, crazy colors, crazy shapes, and you clearly realize that all this make sense, it’s so beautiful and so powerful, that you feel glad to be one of them for a while; you feel Japanese, you speak the same language, you are the same thing.

This dancefloor is huge, and you can’t stop marveling that everybody is dancing from the first row to the very back; you see light games playing over your head and you are dreaming, you are an alien just landed on a beautiful planet, dwelled by beautiful people.

You wanna make it last as long as possible, you don’t wanna stop dreaming. When you look at somebody’s watch you realize it’s 6am, and the adrenaline is just the same as 12 hours ago. Amazing.

You thank the Dj, the atmosphere, and you feel so lucky to be there.

Then you try to speak to somebody and suddenly you wake up: they don’t speak your language, you are not one of them. But they keep on smiling and bowing at you showing respect, the respect you gained by mixing with strangers and making everybody feel at ease with you, sharing the same experience.

Once you are in Japan you learn how differences makes the difference, and you see how much music is important to our Nippon fellows, expanding your brotherhood to the whole world.

It’s beautiful. I call it the power of music.”

From the outside it might seems foolish, but from inside everything make sense and it couldn’t be different. Marco San learnt how to dialogue with robots and tried to catch their human side, and in the end he made it, he realized that Japanese are not that far from us: they love life and try to improve it day by day, they need to vent out mentally and physically and they feel emotions… maybe in the end they are one step forward in the human evolution process, they are next level human 2.0

Me and my business buddy David crossed an infinite series of events and people, building a puzzle stuck between dream and reality. Cool.

The adventure began in Osaka, where together with local friends we got into night life, then the friends became brothers and we moved out of the city, enjoying a hippie traditional electronic (?) music festival in the middle of a forest up in the mountains, among fire-eaters and synthesizers, wiggly belly-dancers and electric guitars, yo!

Japanese hospitality is amazing, in the end I found myself full of friends and a bit in debt with them, people similar to me who speak like robot, people with my same dreams, bad habits and virtues, just like brothers!

Tokyo has been the apotheosis, Shibuyaaaa, Shibuyaaaaa!

Tokyo looks like a huge village: take Hong Kong and Shanghai’ skyscrapers, spread them to the ground, lie them flat and you get Tokyo, where everyday lasts 48 hours.

You can find the calm of a countryside town in a tiny alley, then you turn the corner and you’re in the center of the world, the epicenter to be precise.

We’ve been photographers, models, writers, journalists, fuck-arounders and philosophers; Tokyo’s beau monde in my hand and some silk kimono made my head spin, they almost made me set roots, and I’m still wondering what the hell am I doing in Korea right now…

I look at the calendar and see I got 27 and I spent a month in Tokyo, plus cash flowed out a bit too quick, the stuff is getting out of control…

A Monday morning while our friends are asleep we run away from the center of the world, scared of being sucked in and we hitchhike southbound on the wipeout-style highway like two urban fools.

We get to the feet of noble Mt. Fuji a warm afternoon, and like two moron we start hiking up just like it was a shortwalk in a park. I’ll find myself at 10pm struggling like an elephant trying to get to the station at 3000 mt. where to spend the night. It’s impossible, my lungs ask for change after the wild city life and my legs are trembling, two idiots climbing a volcano without water!

I’m about to faint, but the right music on my speakers give me final power and exhausted I get to the top, where I find out that I could have been the 10^th man dead on Fuji in 2009! Next morning I enjoy the splendid sunrise and the downhill is a funny sand-boarding in the place where few hours earlier I almost passed away, yo!

In Kyoto I’ve been the man of the protocol and saw some temples of the former capital of Japan, in Hiroshima I paid tribute to Atom Bomb’s human disaster, I realized that the end of the world is not far and anyway I did my good job so far; in the end we will go back to this planet and our ashes will be basis for new life, that’s what we deserve, life is about cycles.

A long breath and a last hitchhike with a madman who drive us to Fukuoka at 2000 km/h on the videogame-highway that winds up like an wild-eyed dragon. The mom of this great guy insist to let us sleep in their humble dwelling and cook for us the most amazing breakfast with rice, fish, eggs, vedges, seeweeds, sausages, bread, butter, jam and fruit… hey where’s my newspaper?

Not even the time for thank the family and all of a sudden we are on a boat to South Korea…

Next level, mission Japan… accomplished!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

When you wish somebody could stop the time, when you deceive yourself that you keep it in your hand, and you turn around and realize it’s gone, oh time time, how I wish to stop you, how I wish to make you mine forever, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Japan

Hong Kong - Shanghai

2009-07-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/HongKongShanghai

Here we are again,
Hong Kong has been a real break, 8 weeks off from this maxi-holiday.

For my life is recently upside down, in these 8 weeks I've been... working!

Hong Kong was a British colony since the infamous opium wars last century, and in 1997 the rental contract with the smugglers ended, bringing it back to Mainland China.
Now it's a city-state with a unique relationship with CCP, who officially rules but in practice has little influence on people.
Money counts far more than politics.

Here there's freedom of thought, word and expression; people demonstrate for democracy on the streets, even though it looks like just a pretext for shopping and consumerism.
Metaphor of modern geopolitical paradox.
Nice, neat, clean, charming, english, a unique business city where Chinatown and Oxford street blend together, explosive mix of carts and Mercedes.
Meltin'pot of faces and races, many colors interacting in a cool style.

As soon as I stepped in "Asia's World City" an Italian expedition came over to greet me: my nephew, sister and mother!
The happy family adapted pretty well to this continent, enjoying - even too much - local culture and weird people, as well as the dubious hotel were i put them in...

Finally I could put all my knowledge about Asia and the Middle Kingdom into words, resuming 4000 years of oriental culture over a bowl of rice and tofu, teaching the use of chopsticks to my primitive fellows.
I've been spoiled by some pizzas, spaghetti and big breakfasts kindlyoffered by the family, I couldn't refuse...
After the crew left, I shake it up: I need cash, fast cash... what to do?
Waiter, bartender, graphic designer... mhmh so boring...

There I am in Times Square, the heart of Hong Kong, juggling!
Entertaining the crowd rushing from one mall to the other, I unleashed my not-amazing-skills of juggler and animator, crowning my performances doing statue, mime, or more generally, acting like amoron!
Very funny, and instead of kicking me out of the square this people apparently appreciated my abilities by taking pictures and throwing coins over coins in my hyper-style mao hat!

Tough life being a street artist, hided from policemen with low sense of humor and chased by yelling kids demanding fat and fast laughs, posing for pictures and creating a new silly sketch every 5 minutes!
Yes I had fun, but I took it seriously, and working everyday for 6 weeks, sweating and melting in the square, I managed to save some cash, which will be useful in the near future.
And while at night people outside were waiting for my shows, I spent most of my daytime inside my tiny rented room, getting in touch withfriends from afar and studying history, philosophy and globalgeopolitics, thinking about how to keep my adventure real.
Many words bounced over the walls of that room: past, future, work,holiday, working-holiday, India, Japan, Mars, universe...

In the end I'm aware that everything happens only in our mind, in a huge game of universal parallelisms, where only the present matters, where past won't come back and future is unknown...

Bearing memories from yesterday and reminding myself that tomorrow might be too late my choice came for itself: after my 1-year-travel-birthday on July 15th i greeted the former Britsh colony with fireworks over Victoria Harbour and set sail, walking into China.Again.

The gap between Hong Kong and China is still quite big, in the people, mind and atmosphere.

When I saw a train overcrowded with people who sleep, eat, pick theirnoses, shave their non-existent beard, spit nutshells, scream and mess around I realized to be back in a land I loved.

I get to Shanghai: Futurama.
Amazing hyper-modern buildings give a whole new face to capital-communist China.
Past and future live side by side with all their juxtapositions: ancient quarters packed with old-style Shangainese live squeezed between evergrowing skyscrapers, creating a vibrant and bizarre metropolis, who's almost feared by the unrivalled queen Hong Kong.
Shanghai, the Orient Pearl, is the China of the new century. Be ready boys.

The goal was to enjoy my second solar eclipse: after last year in Russia now I'm meeting old friends from Novosibirsk's time plus other buddies; but sadly the clouds were covering the sky and we couldn't enjoy the event that much...
Some trishaw challenges and Qingdao beerbrought smile in our faces anyway!

And while I was getting ready for the Silk Road and Xinjiang - ChinaMuslim far west - I met this dutch travel buddy who, showing me a boat ticket to Japan, easily convinced me to follow him.

Right man, Japan is calling me!
I change all my plans and just like kidding I find myself on a cruise boat, and after 48 hours floating eastwards i get to Osaka!!

Yo!

At sunrise my dear friend, looking east, you'll see the shape of a madman who still believes in his dream.
It will be the dawn of a new great day.
The same dream goes on, hyper-real!

Konnichiwa MarcoSan, Arigatoooo!!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/HongKongShanghai

Malaysia - Brunei - Singapore

2009-05-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Malaysia
http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Brunei
http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Singapore

Eventually, and with the right ease, I came upon the final tip of Eurasian continent: Malllayyysia!

This world ranges from wild and pure jungle to hi-tech cybercity; once was the centre of gravity of world sea trade between East and West: traders and shipmen were sailing the Melaka strait, merging India with China, introducing (together with Indians and Chinese) both Islamic culture from Middle East and well-tested logistic and strategy of British colonials (together with lots of Chinese, say it again), building a society historically among the most multicultural in the whole world: maybe globalization started here 500 years ago!

It took a while to overcome the shock shifting from hot pants and wet t-shirts in Thailand to Muslim veils that cover local visages, for Islam is official religion.
After a while this heterogeneous but cohesive mix of Muslim Malay + Buddhist and Christian Chinese + spicy Indians + Headhunters from Borneo actually striked me and I felt home speaking Chinese, eating Malay and laughing Indian!

Everybody speaks great English, and hitchhikes switched from deaf-mute dialogues in other countries to brilliant cultural symposiums: on an average day I got lifts from cultured Muslim Malay that enhanced my knowledge about Islam, from Indians to whom I asked about Shiva, Vishnu, Kali and Ganesh, and finally from some Chinese to whom I gave him pearls of mandarin: NiHaoMa? Haaaao!

I always have to say that I’m Christian, but even though I practice intellectual atheism I’m constantly charmed by different religions and beliefs that fill the lifes of loads of people; in the end the concept is the same, but told with different slangs.
As I lose myself in observing different religious rituals in worship places and clownish pagan interactions in the asiaticly messed markets my mind flies away, and I feel at home.

In 6 weeks I travelled from rich peninsula Malaysia to wild Malay Borneo, stepping in Brunei and Singapore, two countries now independent but strongly linked from culture and history to Malay life.
Due to weird country boundaries during these weeks I ended up with 16 stamps on my passport, drastically reducing free pages for my next visas: will I do fake papers in Kathmandu?

Anyway, wandering across west peninsula under equatorial burning sun I came to Melaka and Penang, two historic city-port from colonial time now filled with people, cars and malls.
Nice and interesting study history of commerce from old times, but nowadays trade get me bored then quick like a sabertooth tiger I jump on my local partner AirAsia to Borneo.
Let’s get wild, again!

Last century’s Borneo was impenetrable jungle and tribal life, headhunters and odd animist rituals, but alas this island among the biggest and exotic of the world has been conquered by global modernity; still there is jungle, but massive logging, palm oil and rubber plantations are slowly killing the wild Borneo.
Indonesian Borneo, Kalimantan, is less developed and more tribal (and less easy to explore), and Malay side is more civilized: tribal headhunters time is gone, and their offspring enjoy modern working life, just like us.
Legend says, however, that during construction of bridges, streets and buildings, in the end among workers (especially filipinos and indonesians) some head get missing for real! The spirits of forest take these offerings and protect humans from calamity, secular tradition continue and peaceful life goes on, downhere!

I need Borneo, I need it to test my thirst for adventures: have I enough or I’m still thirsty?
I had fast and deep experience: 12 hours upriver Rajang where roads still are missing, then a dive in gigantic Niah Caves, where billions of bats are waiting for the night in their royal upsidedown position.

After these introduction it came the time to experience the real jungle (still there’s a lot of it!): I rented a Malay guy and with his machete we made our way trough the thousand-year-old forest, jumping like Tarzan from tree to log, crossing neck-level rivers and meeting various kind of genetically modified insects.
After climbing Batu Punggul with bare hands like Manolo and enjoied beautiful sunset over rainforest me and my buddy realized that it’s a bit late, and darkness is shading over us…
Glooms came and I’m in the middle of the jungle, animal and insect sounds grow up in this loud concert of live wild junglish music.
The atmosphere is filled with tribality.
It’s amazing to be part of this orchestra and scream all my primitive impetous but there’s no time to lose, every minute it gets darker and the risk of spending the night with screaming monkeys eating insects grub become too much realistic!
An easy day trip shift to a night run speeding away from jungles’ tentacles…
In the end we make it, and this “Night Jungle Parade” get me mudded, completely sweaty (yeah rainforest is a bit wet), some scratches and wounds, a bump in my forehead (crashed against a baobab), insects all over my body, my right shoe dashed (remember the one bought in China?) and a bloodsucking leech hanged to my sock!

Sounds like good Karma is still with me, but I hope I haven’t left my soul entangled to some branches!

After today any touristic trek is nothing, but I join an expedition upriver Kinabatangan, close to Sandakan (home of Sandokan, the real tiger of Malaysia, comeing by an Italian writer) in a wildlife spotting trip.
Sadly, or luckily, I haven’t met any tiger, but I spotted orang utan (in Malay language Oran = man Tang = forest), macaque, proboscis monkey, crocodiles, big lizards, big spiders, big rats, hornbills, owls, and coloured birds leisurely sat on a touristy boat together with Sunday’s tourists fully equipped; they were a bit repulsed when I told them I ate insects in Thailand!

To refresh myself from unbearable humidity and over-burning sun I hitch from jungle to the coast, till Semporna and Sipadan Island, gifting me with another scuba dive, the last one, the ultimate: I might be boring in descriptions but I honestly wish you, sooner or later in your life, to have a chance of swimming with small sharks and huge turtles, with schools of thousands of barracudas spinning and twisting at three meters from your fins, shaping all together now a cloud, now a submarine, now a whale.
Awesome.
Diving it’s just like a drug: it’s stunning, addictive and hell expensive: then I decide to stick my fins to the wall and, by the way I couldn’t take pictures, I’ll leave the frames of these underwater moments fluctuate between my temples, waiting for the siren’s echo to call me back there, where paradise is. Yo!

Back inshore: sadly I haven’t spotted tigers and neither tribes of indigenous Dayak people with blowpipes and pikes, and instead of climbing Mt. Kinabalu I got an invitation to a Bugis Malay/Indonesian Muslim ceremony in honour of a newborn baby.
Islamic atmosphere here is a far cry from Khmer Buddhist wedding in Cambodia: no alcohol and no music.
Men are passing time chatting, smoking and eating delicious cakes cooked by their faithful wives, whom wear coloured long dresses and fix their veils with pied pins.
As a guest I’m over-respected and served of food, sweets, fruits and water, sat on Arabic carpets.
To not make any inmity I always try to face Mecca, but this thin methapor is not taken by the nice, but shy and sober, convivials.

Eventually it comes the climax of the ceremony, and the Imam after focused prayers get ready to make the sacrifice of a male cow, in the honour of the baby.
Everyone is curious and carefully looking at the throat-cutting and slaughtering of the beast, and some child is a bit shocked by watching the head coming inside the house while the body is still lay on the field.
The ritual last one hour, and when everything seems over suddenly the Imam catches a rooster and sacrifice it in honour of the cow.
What? What’s the matter with the rooster? And who’s gonna die in honour of the rooster? Me? Ah, that’s why you gave me food! You want me to get fat!

My friend Ismail reassure me that I will not be throat-cutted, rather I’ll have a royal treatment and in the end the initial shyness will led to wide smiles and Hello and good pictures; somebody asks me one of the best questions ever, in broken english: “In your country… do you have jungle?” After a laugh my answer is diplomatic: “No sorry no jungle, but we have lots of monkeys in our government!”

In between these wild and social adventures I spent few days in Brunei: the goal was say “What’s up man!” to the sultan, but the royal guards forbitted me to enter palace…
Weird country Brunei, thought to see sheiks and rolls-royce in arab- millionaire style, but it sucks!
Once Brunei was as large as Borneo island, then Dutch and British colonies bought lands over lands, leaving the poor but rich sultan with a small country, but rich in petrol.
Hence thanks to these gifts and black gold the royal family is among the richest in the world, and preserve the longest long-lived dictatorsh…ehm monarchy of history.

Common people are in fact under a blackmail from their beloved king (in turn puppet of the army): peace, enough wealth, almost no taxes, free education, sanity etc, an infallible social system assured on condition that people accept the non-freedom of expression, non-democracy, iron Islam and especially absolute prohibition in drinking alcohol!
Yep, in Brunei you can’t find a beer dear my friend, but petrol is less than 20 cents!

Capital city Bandar Seri Begawan has two amazing mosques, some good museums (a bit propagandist though), a stilt village and less more, two days are enough for this bizarre Brunei Darussalam, who though gave me noteworthy considerations about the dichotomy dictatorship/freedom; this tiny country is a good case study for some social and politic mechanisms.
Some compare this sultanate to the military junta in Burma but in a “Nice” way, nobody complains ‘cause everybody has a medium-hi wealth, even though in the end of the day I’m sure they will die for boredom…

Another world is Singapore, where I landed after wild Borneo: a city-state rich, clean and prompt, global market of cheap technology and advanced business; where air-con winds cross the gates of the thousands malls and reach the urban streets, giving some second of pleasure under the everlasting equatorial sauna.

Theoretically Singapore (from Sanskrit Lion City) is a prototype of modern perfect city, and the slogan “produce consume die” is literally enforced, everything works perfectly and sometimes you don’t even feel you’re in Asia…

Well if what we want is “produce consume die” I reckon here we are, but honestly I believe we can do better, we can have bit more royal goals; often I ask myself “Where are we going?” No answer, everybody here seems to go his own way, but to me it sounds the same fried rice warmed-up again and again!

Anyway, positive social life, especially at electro concert of DjKentaro (Japan keep on calling me) and some other meetings Chinese, Filipinos and Indians, melted in some street action photography.

Singaporean Chinese (large majority) are way different from Chinese in China, no pushing, no spitting, they rather are extremely hypochondriacs and ever more westerner than me!
Loads of people move down here for business/shopping/city life, but thousands of restrictions for the sake of your safety, constant psychological terrorism, salty fines and this “slightly” consumerism attitude make, to me, a bit boring, grey and android this future.

After a week I escaped from Singa to preserve my wallet from useless expenses, throwing shopping mania in the garbage, just like it was plastic. And no recycle.

From Singapore I watch south with a binocular and I see Indonesia, it attract me with its islands, culture and dark skin, I hear drums and tropical bells calling me…
I meditate for a while, and with an Uran on my shoulder I decide to turn back: Indonesia deserve time and dediton, by the way I got at least 16 plans running through my head I postpone the archipelago exploration to the future, if Buddha and Allah will want.
Don’t worry, the dream is not over!

Back in Malllayyysia, in a short stop in east coast (much similar to Borneo than to west coast), I risked to become prince of a sultanate (!) and after escaping from royal troubles I got, finally, to Kuala Lumpur, capital city.
Nice city, if it wouldn’t because of the striking heat I’d make a thought…
The impressive Petronas Towers, glass buildings, Arabic-style skyscrapers, classics Little India and Chinatown, amazing Islamic Art Museum, breakfasts with Roti Canai, Nasi Lemak and Nasi Goreng, a welcomed re-meeting dated Mongolia and puff… time’s up!

And here I am sitting on a sofa, fan fasted to my face, catching breath for a while.
6 moons ploughed my South-East Asian skies, 6 months spent in slippers and shorts enjoying tropical delicacy, my mind goes back with a smile to Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Thai and, accomplished like somebody who just got driving license, I tell myself it’s time to change.

Tomorrow I sail off, let’s shake some dust capitain!
But where?
H…
Ho…
Ho Chi Min?
Hokinawa?
Honululu?
Hoslo?
Haaa.. a bit predictably I drop my clinch to Hong Kong, Yo!

Yong Kong!

Suggestions and especially economic contributions are welcome for my next stages, unless like King Kong I get stuck to a skyscraper in Kowloon )

Yo!!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Malaysia
http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Brunei
http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Singapore

Thailand

2009-04-13T02:21:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Thailand

Thailand: sooner or later everybody fall in, and no surprise many people forget to leave...

What to say about Thailand you still don't know?

Wonderful unspoiled beaches, amazing exotic food, 5 star welcome, and many extras non listed in the menu but included in the price...

For the whole world Thai means exotism, holiday, relax, fun, easy travel; well... same for me!

All the ideals built in these months about traveling ethically adventurous, far from society, avoiding turistic paths, diving 100% in local culture... All of these ideals blown off after 5 minutes my arrival in Thailand: I surrended myself to extreme ease, the comfort, the smiles and all the Thai optionals; in the end, i did right!

No ok i won't go to far, i didn't fuck off my ideals, let's say to me Thailand has been the 4th episode of "Back to the future", the return to modern society, in the Buddhist year 2552.

In Bangkok I closed my Initiatic Cycle "From Village to Metropolis" started in Mongolia, getting lost in Chinese mountains till Tibet border, in Sichuan and Yunnan, and then Laos, Cambodia and finally Burma... All these country and wild life gave me much and opened up my eyes, rather they opened up a third eye in my forehead: the eye of wisdom.
Ah no sorry it wasn't wisdom it was just some dirty...

After many months here i am tired, sweating and dirty, sit on the nth car (with aircon freezing my armpit hair) in slow hitchhiking.
I see Bangkok's light in the dark: open mouth stick to the window I saw passing by my (now 3) eyes all symbols and icons of the society which I belong, in which i raised, in which I teenagerly rebelled and in which I detached for few months.
Suddently I realized that while I was in the desert reconciling with nature and wild world the world itself has gone straight ahead, without waiting for me, and it seems it didn't miss me that much.
Well, far enough, it means I'm not a key cog in the machinery! And while I see new technology pouring on, new materiality that enslaves us, new needs that blind us and new crisis to whom the world has to face, I feel free, I'm not a shrivel up cog, I'm a fucking wheel speeding up at its own way! Yo!

The closing of Initiatic Cycle for my small brain is very important, useful, charming, entangling, but not easy, now i got far more questions than answers flying between my temples...

Finding myself before between indigenous that barely can satisfy they primary needs and suddently being among who consume 1 and waste 4 has its consequences on me, and hardness in drawing the complexity of human natura sometimes puzzle me.

After all these global paranoia i get to Khao San Road, in the center of Bangkok, the traveller's Olympus, where I don't even got time of dazzle or puzzle that I start meeting people and building some social entertainment network.
Smiling I welcome myself to Thailand: all the post-modern questions go straight in the wardrobe and I start a "Rock'n'roll-and-fuck-off" lifestyle; eventually, dear Marco, you deserve it!

A modern and global Thailand, that makes good business with Farangs, that 7-elevens are open 24h a day, that each year becomes less exotic and more expensive, where you "get bad habit 'cos you're on holiday" and where millions of turists are glad to enter Thai-mood, spending few days in Bangkok before of leading on resorts on amazing beaches in the south, or trekking in the north.
But a Thailand also still anchored to Buddhist traditions and some degree of conservatism (not for sure in Pattaya or Puket). This mix of beaches & bitches VS spirituality & Buddhist monks gives a particular energy to this country, modern but ancient at the same time, where East and West live, each one in his own business, hands in hands, where if you want you can be bitch or if you want you can be hermit.

Eventually I spent a whole month in Bangkok, where, without getting too much into details, I had fun!!

Friends, friends, long nights, short afternoons, sunrises and sunsettings; squat life made by juggling, beer and electronic music: I learnt using unicycle jugglin and drinkin, I composed my first digital song (I missed some 12 hours in front of a computer!) and shared hilarious metropolitan adventures with (to say some) Chile, Brazil, Panama, US, Canada, England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Croatia, Russia, Israel, Senegal, Sudan, Ghana, India, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand...

Constant background was an unbearable heat and fucking mosquitoes bitches, sometimes I dreamt about a train to Siberia, then I solaced myself with tropical ice-creams and sweet rice...

Ah, talking about food: finally I faced my demons and one night at one stand selling insects I raided: first I observed dazzled happy kids coming ready to enjoy local delicacy such as grasshoppers, worms and various flying stuff, then it was my turn: little worms are actually good (even though my italian background...), then other insects small, bigger... till i reached the top: a BUG!

Bleeeeeeah! Crunchy outside, soft inside, with all those little wings that brake up in your palate, all the cartilage meltin like chocolate in your gums... mhmh thinkin about it I still water my mouth!
After the soft legs I got to the head and there I gave up, but a new page in my life has been written, i ate insects!
Next stop might be drink human blood in some african tribes, I love new cultures!

Then I've been to Chiang Mai (Thai second city, in the north), and it got not much different: night swimmings, Thai-ska party and so on... and I also got the great idea of packing to Italy Kg.10 of books (n.30) bought in the best second hand bookstore in the world, you know culture has no price, but when it's so cheap I just dive in!

After a month of metropolitan life it was time to leave Bkk, and the idea of catching any train, boat, bus or car gave me nausea... i'm seriously tempted by the idea of flying tomorrow to Hong Kong and staying there building a new life, then I calm down and say to myself "Sure you can do it, you're just a free man you can go where the hell you want, but on the other hand it's no use in hurrying, you have a whole life; then, dear Marco, Fuck you!"

This interior monologue gave me the boost to go further, or, to be precise, to continue southbound. Yo!
Of all these amazing Thai beaches frankly speaking I didn't really care, but I granted myself with few days of scuba diving (always top experience) and a crazy Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan, meeting some old and new friends.
Finally I enjoyed the Thai New Year (or Water Festival): 3 days in which the whole country stops and everybody splashes each other with loads of water, and loads of water again, forever, until you get mad, or faint, or drown.
The result is really funny, with amazing scenes of huge water fights to anybody, plus a rock/house live concert with loads of artificial foam pouring down the street between buildings among the collective frenzy.

The best idea of my whole travel is to leave Thailand at 12 in the last day of the Water Festival: I even took a shower to look nice at Malaysian custom; all clean with my backpack and passport in hand i stepped out of my GuestHouse and there hell begun: everybody, EVERYBODY smiling were throwing me buckets full of water and after 20 seconds me my backpack my books passport are like a cat in a lake: wet.
At the begin I try to limit the damage telling to everybody to not wet me, that of course makes things worst and I resign myself to my destiny, than the situation start to be really unbearable and I recruit a crazy Thai that on his motorbike speeding up like hell zigzagging through the madness manage to bring me to the bus station after 1 hour of fightings.
Safe. Can't believe. You can't believe. Alive.
Totally wet and dirty by shaving cream and talcum powder (midsummer carnival) I open my bag hoping that at least my passport will be usable; lucky enough, a part from dog' smell emerging, I only have to dry 3 books and few pages of my passport...
An epic victory that will end up in history's books, together with the real fightings in Bangkok made by pro-Thaksin (Thai Berlusconi) protesters.
Imagine that in Italy a pacific demonstration could be able to oust Berlusconi, and after 4 months all his "Forza Italia Youth" get down the streets with their tie on their forehead and start burning tyres and crashing shop-windows...
This happened in Thailand!
The world here or there spins upside down!

A part from shit politics I sadly, sadly left Thailand...

123 I'm in Malaysia!
In half an hour I booked some flights and after 1 and half months of Malaysia-Borneo I'm (finally) flying out of South-East Asia, but I won't tell you where I'm going ok?

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Thailand

Burma (Myanmar)

2009-03-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Burma

8 months ago, before my start, I said to my father: “Take it easy dad, in this journey I will always stick touristic routes and I’ll never go in dangerous places, for sure I won’t go to Burma!”

And here I am, confident, and with grandpa Willy supporting me from far away, checking in for Yangon, Burma’s former capital city.

The history is quite easy: after being a province of British colonial empire together with India, from 1962 Burma is ruled by a dictatorship military junta: martial law.
In ‘89 the name was changed to Myanmar, but we don’t like regimes, especially the military ones, then we keep the name Burma, feeding the protests, ok?

Every voice of democratic opposition is promptly shut up and huge peaceful demonstrations in ‘88, ‘97 and 2007 ended up with a bloodbath as much as TienAnMen, where young military men were forced to shoot on the crowd (monks, students and likely their families gathered in the streets); those who were hesitating, showing humanity, were arrested and replaced by other poor and ignorant youth taken from remote countryside villages, being happy to hold M-16 or AK-47 and playing at wargames, having a grotesque revenge against rich and cultured university students...

All this shit is happening today, present time, it’s not history; and nowadays the terror regime makes every wrong deed or word suspicious of conspiracy, leading, if lucky, lo prison… Students and Intellectuals are constantly under fire from sharp shooters and those who speak too much with foreigners must check their back and avoid taboo words.

I’m wondering what’s behind this Orwellian madness (that was prophet writing “Burmese days”, “Animal Farm” and “1984” in the ‘40ies).
I can’t believe a surgent waking up one day and creating all this; then I got the answer: Burma is n.2 producer of Opium (n.1 Afghanistan), keenly smuggled by China and Russia, with silent ok by the US (they are behind everything, and increasingly fearing China); in turn they provide weapons and intelligence.
While in the middle east the “democratic” wars are constant, here they don’t even need lullabies...

What you see in everyday life is a “police and thieves” game in a paradoxical exotic and sadly happy context; the Burmese people are stick to the wall, chocked and impotent in their farmer old tradition, and I still wonder how some people can sleep at night...

As a tourist, I brought some bad and some good: 50ish of my dollars ended up in the government pockets as “security foreigners taxes”, on the other hand I lent both my ears to the many voices willing to talk and shout their rage, I brought many smiles and laughs, I made friendships and I showed a human side to those living under siege, where your neighbor may be a spy and shoot your back.

I could write 10 more html pages about shit seen, read and been told, but I’m rambling and you’re getting bored so I better start to write about my 4 burmese weeks:

Sadly I haven’t done any mean of transport trades (after having sold my skateboard to a teenager in Bangkok!), and switching from a board to a paddling boat to an aeroplane might sound drastic, but I didn’t have a choice, all the land crossing are shut due to rebel fights and opium business...

So you think New York is the metropolis, the definitive multi-culture place?

You’re wrong, Yangon is the real meltin’pot!
Whites, blacks, yellows and reds: Burmese, Chinese, Bengali, Cingali, Pakistani, Nepali, Buddhists, animists, hindu, muslims, jews and cristians all live in a square meter!

“Hey Brother! Change money! Taxi! My friend! Drink tea! Want girl?”
A stroll through Yangon’s streets is a trip of smells, stinks, dust, trash, colors, sounds, noises, screams, robes and turbans, the experience I was waiting for! A big city, where old women sell dubious food covered by flies next to modern coffee shops, where barefoot Indians sell hi-tech products, where garbage is a décor and living scenography!
A dive in this world, where the heat is unbearable so that taking showers is just useless, you better get use to and manage the layer of sweat-dust-smog-shit that grows between you and the rest of the world, hoping a strange ecosystem won’t rise up!

After this poly-sensorial experience I start hitchin’ a ride: the first goal is to see the new capital city built just 3 years ago in the middle of nowhere 6 hours north of Yangon:
NayPyiTaw (pronounce NiPiDo) is well off the track and protected from everything and everybody, where only military men and government officials live, where electric power is running 24 hours a day (in the rest of the country light is yo-yoing, and people have power generators and some hire power from Chinese companies), and, most important, where astrologists said that is the perfect point where raising the capital of “A new perfect society, a new race...”, awkward.

No bus leads there, no guidebook talks about it, nobody wants to go. I start walking, like a lunatic, under the boiling sun through the surreal, long, desert paved and clean road that lead to NayPyiTaw.
I feel like entering Pyongyang, North Korea.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nuclear weapon behind a dune or a Blackhawk hidden in the bush.
I’m stopped by 3 police blocks where the guys, surprised as much as me for my appearance, ask me where the hell I am going: I mumble, gesture, pretending to know where I am and start walking again. The cop speaks in his walkie talkie my arrival in town. I start feeling like a fugitive.
Luckily a concrete mixer truck comes with some ok Burmese that bring me to their place of work: the building of the new government palace, a huge, no, more, a fucking huge cement building under construction rising in the distance from the desert, that annihilate the palm huts in which the slave… ehm the workers live, with a bridge crossing the huge moat dividing the palace from the rest of the world. Will they put crocodiles? It’s majestic, big, beautiful, and reminds me of Berlin’s Reichstag but 10 times bigger and spiky roof.
What the fuck!! Where the hell am I? Will I be cuffed?

While some fear starts bumping in my throat I also feel much adrenaline growing up, and take as many pictures as I can, before a guy on a motorbike approaches me “Hey you?””Yes?””No photo.””Ok my friend thank you!” He leaves, I’m safe.
Another motorbike comes and takes me downtown: a cluster of 4 lane streets in the middle of nowhere, kilometres of poured asphalt separating nothing from nothing, while the sun seems to melt down the landscape. Am I dreaming? Hallucinating? What the fuck!

Eventually we reach the first houses, built with dreadful Chinese material, all the same, with obscene colors, with barbed wire and machine guns (no just kidding), with barbed wire and many antennas; entire ugly blocks, where nobody walks, nobody lives, where the hell is everybody? Man or robots?
Ah there they are, all in the main square drinking hot tea, today actually is Sunday.
The ugliest square around Asia, I guess, everybody stares at me and mumbles. I drink some sugar cane juice pretending to feel comfortable. Somebody talks with me, don’t know if they are spies or whatever and I just nod at them. One man sits next to me and tells me that he hates this place and he was forced to move here 3 years ago from Yangon with all his family.
Then he leaves. Tough situation.

As somebody says I’m the first tourist of 2009, so I gift myself a t-shirt “Rememberance of NayPyiTaw”. I look for a place to sleep and the only one open to foreigners is an expensive 20 dollars one (never paid more than 5 dollars in Asia), thus I leave the capital, choosing the option “Northbound Night Train”.

The journey reminds me of the unforgettable route Beijing-Pingyao with people sleeping anywhere, with a bit less rubbish on board but more bumps, a swinging slow train.

Yawning, I get to Inle lake, a hi-altitude lake surrounded by mountains, where I put aside my revolutionary thoughts and military shit and enjoy them, the Burmese, in their simple fisherman’s life, rowing with one foot while catching the net with both hands and standing still on the other foot. Circus!

After many funny lifts on motorbikes and trucks I get to central Burma. In the dusty Mandalay I find the exuberant and conspirator Moustache Brothers and chat with monks and local friends, while striving against sandstorms comparable to Gobi desert ones. Sometimes the famous layer of sweat-dust-smog-shit is really unbearable...

All the country is filled with temples and pagodas, especially on the mountain tops, these lands are with plenty of golden towers, hence the name “Golden Land” is worthy! Burmese truly believe a lot in Buddhism, they practice and travel the country as pilgrims, not tourists, and try to gain merit for their next life, hoping that will be better than this...

In Monywa I luckily saw 2 huge Buddhas, one reclined and one standing, more than 130 metres high! Much more stunning than the Leshan’s one, in China, and inside him (!) 25 floors (now available only 5), showing images from Buddhist’s Hell (a moment between one life and the other), in which I don’t wish for you to end up: people twisted, broke into pieces, stabbed, cooked…

Then in Bagan, after 1 million more pagodas, it’s time for adventures: I met some Burmese guys who invited me for an incredible event: Nat worshipping festival: 2 days of party and offerings to the Nats, the spirits that, according to pre-buddhist beliefs, live inside everything surrounding us! Just like shamans and animists they worship these spirits being sure to get their luck and their protection.

At 4am I’m ready to ship with other 80 burmese man and women aging from 1 to 70, going north to the small village where the massive festival is held.
On the swinging boat everybody is beautiful: men wear short sleeve shirts and longji, the traditional and everyday life cloth that covers legs like a long skirt;
their mouth and teeth are stained with a redder-than-blood powder, it's not they've been eating a zebra in the jungle; it's betel, local liqorice!

Women are simple and beautiful in their flowered long dresses, and their cheeks are full of thanaka: a yellow cream, gotten from wood, that everybody, men and women, use as makeup, decoration and protection against the sun. The results are amazing and exotic designs painted on everybody’s face and arms, stunning on chubby child’s face and sweet Burmese girls! Ah so much exoticism!

I’m by far the dirtiest on board (I didn’t expect all this cleanliness!) and with some compassion my friend MaoMao lent me a shirt and a longji: I’m a Burmese! I’m clean!

Burmese’s English is definitely good, but it seems they mix a little English and Spanish: their “Yes, Nos, Thankyous” bring big laughs to my face!

We’re off: from 8 to 11 a woman around 30 starts the worshipping on the boat, offering food, drinking, smoking, dancing and singing under the crazy Burmese music coming from crappy megaphones. After 3 hours the woman will have honestly finished a bottle of rum and smoked at least 60 cigarettes (2 at a time!) and fed everybody on board including me, and we all thanked the spirits burping!

The chaotic music, the noise of the engine and the swinging of the boat, the chanting, dancing and some rum and I’m totally dizzy and in a spirit trance together with my crazy crew!
Fantastic, absolutely amazing, and more has to come: at night, after 12 hours sailing upstream we reach the village, and we are not alone! Flocks of boats come from every corner, overcrowded with party-mood and full-of-rum Burmese singing and swinging.
The real festival is managed by some men dressed as Nats that took all the offerings of money and alcohol giving back dancing and blessings.
The crowd is literally overwhelmed, they mosh pit dance under the full moon in an atmosphere that... I cannot say... Crazy? Magic? Enchanting? If only I would be able to understand what they are screaming out...

A human sacrifice would be the perfect climax, but it seems these indigenous still have some brain power!
The night I sleep, well I try to, on the roof of the boat, with the echo of the music still running until the morning... The day after on the way back I find myself in the middle of a fight on the boat: 2 guys, due to too much rum, cannot peacefully decide who was winning over a card game and as result all the people on board hysterically scream and push each other among shouts, tears and flying punches!
I remove myself and watch (never get into local’s affairs) and after 5 mins the fight is over; the balance is not bad: just one slightly wounded.

Great stuff man!

So now I also have protection from the spirits, nobody can stop me!

Eventually I reach the Bengali bay and rest at the beach for a few days. Burmese on holiday (for now is summertime here) swim in the ocean totally dressed with shirts and long pants (!) for their society is pretty much conservative, and a bikini may be too much...
I have great symposiums in French with a 60 year old couple from Paris now retired (just like me!). And finally I meet Jack, he’s over 50 and he tells me how 20 years ago he was in the Philippines and ended up working as an extra for the movie “Apocalypse Now”! Crazy world!

Yes, that’s my Burma, where, far from political shit, I had a great experience with this great people, but where political shit is rooted and scary; I often felt like bandit, and in fact I did, for their laws!

After seeing NayPyiTaw it seems, alas, that the worst still has to come, but I hope I’m wrong;

For my little side, I hope at least that these words help to keep alive the memory all my friends met in Yangon, Bago, Inle, Mandalay, Monywa, Bagan and ChaungTa, and the ones that were so brave by challenging the spies and talking to me, will have good luck as much as courage.

Amazing Burma.

On the fly back to Bangkok I met a brother whom I travelled with in Mongolia, reminding me of yaks and camels, yeah!

And now I’m in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and have too many plans in mind for the future so let’s see what happens in these 30 days!

Yo!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Burma

Cambodia

2009-02-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Cambodia

Yes!

I smoked Cambodia in just one drag, and i got psycadelic and allucinant visions, big cambodian stuff!

As usual i like a short hystorical digression to make yourself at home: Cambodia, where Khmer people live, has had two main high spot in its history: the first one a thousand years ago where the Khmer empire, skilled and powerful, conquered most of Indochina and Thailand, creating the basis for culture and religion of these countries. The second one was after french colonialism and two world wars: from then on everything started degenerating, first with battles to kick out the french, then with forced involvement in the Vietnam war, that lead to a series of civil wars which ended up with the genocide set up by that crazy psycopath Pol Pot, even worst than his friends Hitler and Mao...
Shortly from 75 to 79 more than 2 million Khmer (2 million!) were killed by the foolish Khmer Rouge (themselves!), and all this crazyness was endorsed by Usa, Russia and China, isn't it amazing?

As all this tragedy happened recently, it's quite easy to meet the survivors (everybody over 40), and each one of them will openly tell you his story about this madness and his fightings for survival: killing or being killed...

After so much drama cambodians decided to stop killing each other pointlessly and now they smile towards life, sure they don't live in gold, but they're pleased of being alive and they live it up, a bit messily and noisely, but still happily and smilingly. Life jubilation.

What about me? With these basis i trained myself like Rambo in the jungle, ready to fight: after 2 hours i was in Cambodia i met this crazy finnish guy, and together we bought a paddling boat and we spent 6 days paddling down the Mekong!

Yes you got it: i bought a boat!!
We got it for 85 dollars, after a hard bargain!
At the pier the viking and I left, with a fist full of hope, paddling south following the stream, singing about Odin, viking god, hoping that he, Buddha and all the guys upthere won't forget about us!

Right before breaking a beer bottle against the "Queen of Mekong" i also decided to cut off hair and beard, it was the right time!

Then me 12 years younger and my friend happy like a 12 years old kid started paddling, with Stung treng town greeting us, the Mekong pioneers, with the famous Dead Kennedys music backgound: It's a holiday in CAMBODIA!

6 fucking wild days: wake up before sunrise, morning paddling under the heat with many smoke and diving stops, lunch in huts along the shores, afternoon easy paddling through small rapids, enjoying the wild and amazing nature and looking for the perfect desert sandy island where we spend the night, with a stunning sunset. Yeah!

Somebody allarmed us with some guerrilla fighers still working along the shores, but the only problem we faced was when, invited to a Khmer wedding lasting 2 days, after great food and drink we wished to say bye bye and leave; no way!
These people didn't let us go so i found myself dancing tribal Khmer music with this crazy and happy people! Rolling on the river!

After 5 days and 150 km passed on water we made it to Kratie, where i became a business man trying to sell the boat to some fisherman!
Obviously everybody in town knew that 2 barang (foreigners)were trying to sell an old and crappy boat, and after 2 days spent on the pier, looking for customers, i managed to get 35 bucks from this guesthouse owner, and now the "Queen of Mekong" has a new king, please take care of her!!

With cash in my pocket i entered Phnom Penh, capital city!
Crazy town, crazy people, crazy Marco.
A provincial capital, way bigger than what i was used in the last 3 months; the atmosphere is lively, colorful, dusty, hot and friendly, just the name Phnom Penh remind you to something messy and wild, but you know you'll have fun!
A zoo-city, on the streets you can spot elephants, monkeys, yellow dogs and UFO parked among buildings, be careful!

After this pseudo-metropolitan life in PP i finally reached the seaside, Ocean!
Could be poetic about my meeting with the sea, but i didn't waste my time and i spent 3 days on an island scuba diving, with fins on my feet and an air tank on my back, getting lost in this awesome world: along my travel i found out that where there's water there's life, here i've seen that where there's a lot of water there's a lot of life!
A psycadelic journey through fosforescent colors, intriguing shapes and misterious creatures, everything in slowmotion followed by bubbles, a great, hyper, mega stuff!

After Sihanoukville i reached Siem Reap, discovering the famous Angkor Wat ruins: the asiatic Machu Picchu.
A thousand-year old city-temple highlighting the importance of Khmer empire, that now the forest is slowly taking back, with trees roots absorbing the buddhist-hindu ruins, fascinating with this misterious junglish mood.
Once you are there you defenitively clap hands to Khmer people.

Wow, that's my Cambodia, Cambodia no limits!
Besides to all these adventures i made many interviews with genocide survivals, friendship with funny features and local beauties, amazing breakfasts with sweet rice, coconut milk and exotic fruits (aaaahhh... gimme more!!), tons of dust, pushbike rides grabbed to crappy tuk-tuk, sweaty hitchhike with my skate-wand (fixed for few days!) and here i am on the border to Thailand, where i refused a dollar to this american that had lost everything gambling and drinking in one of the many casino here around... dear my yankee we are sourrounded by poverty here, and my dollar surely won't be for you!

Cambodia grabs you and owerwhelms you, and i was pleased to share all this with these people, Phnom Penh will never be that far from me!

Ok, and finally the good news is that i have in my pocket a visa for Burma and a fly ticket for this long dreamed country!
Yeeeeah!

I'll spend a couple of weeks in Bangkok surrounded by smog, skyscrapers and lots of entertainment, before flying to Yangon, see you there then!

Rock and Roll!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Cambodia

Laos

2009-01-15T20:24:00.000-08:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Laos

Laos? What? Where? Why?

All these questions running throuhg my head as i was stepping the border, while sadly saying goodbye to China and getting ready to enter South-East Asia (aka IndoChina, far more guerrilla).

That morning, at the begin of December, a new chapter of this journey was started; after the hot Siberia, Mongolian deserts and grasslands and the blasting China i carefully put my crappy shoes deep down in my bag, and drawing my already sweaty flip flops, i was entering IndoChina from the emergency exit, from the country nobody ever counts on, nobody knows where it is and so cut it out of touristic main routes in SEAsia.

Laos is an ultra laid back country, (Lao PDR stands for Please Don't Rush), where everything is at ease and time slowly flows by; lying in a hammock in the shade of warm 30 degrees you feel good and pretty relaxed, thinking "Well, this is relaxing, this is what i need!".
After being Indiana Jones in China here i've mostly been Indiana Jones on retirement!

It's not at all me, wasting my time sleepin' and chillin', but in Laos this happens automatically, you don't even notice it, and if you don't pay attention, you may forget that you're travelling and you see on the calendar that 3 weeks are gone and say "Really? What happened in these 3 weeks? Hey i'm not on holiday i gotta move!".

Laos' history is being a buffer state, threatened and beaten all
over the centuries and colonized by almost everybody: Cambodia China Burma Thailand Vietnam France and USA- they've done their social and warfare experiments, exploiting the good geographical position and trying to wake up these lazy lao, whose life has always and anyway been rice, beer and hammock; the results are many killed and many fled, looking for safety and some money.

Today Laos is under a supposed Vietnam's backed communism, but nobody really gives a shit, it's only the same people who get rich from it, leaving everybody else barefooted, who without rushing, live in bamboo shacks and run over chickens, roosters, cats, pigs, cows and naked children in these small villages.
Drinking BeerLao, and getting influenced by trash thai tv, Laos looks into the future hoping that tourists begin to bring dollars in their palm-leef jars, changing forever this country, damn white yankee!

Lao atmosphere is a real mix of exotic styles. What i liked more is that everything seems to be pure and real, not yet inflationated from modernity and extreme tourism, as happened to its cousins thai and viet... hence you can enjoy real IndoChina, with bad roads, easy and simple life, poverty, chilled out people and stress so far away...

Anyway in all this chilling you think i just sleep on a hammock?
Naaaah! Well, of course i chilled, widely read, as usual met tons of people, and as usual continued my travel and in the end i enjoyed some blind jumps!

In Luang Prabang, beautiful colonial style town in the north, with thousands of buddhist temples, french buildings and Mekong as background, after typical breakfast banana pancake (yeeeah) and coffee (i had forgotten about it!), i was thinking "Oh c'mon here's too easy... at least in China i got some trouble, it was tough, messy and dirty, i was abandoned to myself, here everybody speaks English, western food is more common and everybody helps you and tells you how to travel and see things in this country... no no i'm getting bored..." afterwards i took a lift to the Chinese market selling everything, and i got enlightenment: from then on i was travelling on a skateboard!

On this Chinese toy skate i had great fun going downhill on the long road leading South; and between hitching i proud and triumphant arrived at the small villages at 5 mph, and everybody laughing out loud seeing this white idiot standing on that wheeled stuff!
And all these thousands of kids smiling and running barefooted behind me like in a marathon, yelling out tons of heloooooo and thankyouuuuuuu! Yeah!
Thank you guys, without you i couldn't do it!

Really, really funny, but unfortunately once i went overboard: i speeded up too much grabbed on a motorbike and i melted down a wheel! End of the game...
From then on my skate became icon of philosophic slow travel, nonethelss wand of modern idiocy, and still joined me proudly bringing smiles to villagers dazzled by my appearance, often welcoming me with joy and warmth (maybe some compassion as well!)

I've been to some very remote villages where the first kids seeing me, just ran away scared like they'd seen the devil in front of them, and often i needed much time to get acquainted with these indigenous... the challenge was high, and with some raspberries, two words in lao and some juggling i managed to get out of the villages with many friends, and... sometimes drunk!

In Phongsavan i rented a motorbike, and on my red corean Fekon i've been descovering the craters left by massive American bombing during the Vietnam war; many of these bombs and missils are unexploited and leave a heavy legacy of landmines in many areas... then, dear Marco, if you have to pee just don't go behind a bush or you may blow off!
Sadly this is not fun, but lao people are Buddhist and take everything with the right philosophy, so no grudges, for this people uses the rest of exploited stuff for useful purposes as collecting water etc... from necessity virtue!

Vientiane, capitol city, it's little bigger than Reggio Emilia, and their lifestyle it's not different from the rest of the country: wake up with roosters singing untuned and many motorbikes that slowly flow to markets, small shops and (the luckiest) to air-con officies waiting for the end of another hot day; nightlife almost non-existent, for lao music, honestly, is really crappy!
My rotten guesthouse was in the worst alley, frequented by suspicious people, misfits from Thailand easy life, and pretty women (but with male voices), that can't afford Thailand so they come here to the less romantic side...

Still much hitching, sometimes hard, sometimes adventurous, worth-while noting this Dutch, driving his '90 mercedes with a bed in the back from Amsterdam to Bangkok, saying that the petrol can be very cheap around the world, in Iran is cheaper than water!
But the best ever was those really bad and fun 100 km close to Ho Chi Minh trail, in the South. I had to wade many rivers with no bridges and walk some hours before getting to forgotten and extremely poor villages, where people were actually disturbed by my passage, it was awkward and i tried to get out soon, and finally got a lift from a tractor riding after sunset through the rugged forest with some dangers like bamboo branches whipping your face, deep puddles and killer mosquitos!

Landed in the next village at ten in the evening i thought it was ended, but i was just halfway... so i spent the night with these indigenous (bit better than the previous one) drinking rotten lao whiskey! At dawn i got probably the greatest ride ever: a huge anfibious truck carrying 2 huge trees, and for the next 3 hours i was on this frightening tank destroying everything on our way! And when the driver told me to duck down, i did so and after a fraction a huge bamboo branch was flying 1 finger over my head... shit!
I actually felt scared, but soo amazed! I kissed the soil when i landed, and once again an experience hard to forget: my ass is safe but maybe i'll change my underpants!

Oh yes, on the road again, galoping adrenaline, can't stop amazing me and don't know what to expect from tomorrow!

After that i spent a chilled new year's eve on one of the 4000 islands, on the Mekong, beautiful, quiet and silent, barefooted together with Australians and my Dutch stepmother: a great 50 year-old illustrator that i met again on the island, but met first time in China 3 months ago!

You know nice coincidences raise your level of enthusiasm, so far i still have a party in my head and every evening, on thousands sunsets on Mekong, i think about the art of travel and please myself: thinking of the past, present and future twisting in the timeline, and with questions and answers to myself this sense of fulfillment is following me trustfully in this triumphal explicit egoism in my brain, kept alive everyday both from adventures and chilled out moments.
Am i getting crazy?
Freedom!

That morning, at the begin of January i left Laos and, sweating, i turned back looking at these 4 weeks flown by in a breath, and i think i don't know the terms of comparison and measure anymore: minutes, days or months? Chilometers or metres?
What still gives me power? What am i looking for?
Ah yeah the answer is in my aphorisms: It doesn't matter where you arrive, but where you start; and I'm not looking for myself, but for all the rest...

Hey Marco, listen up, you've gone too far... fuck you!

Ah last thing: next stop Cambodia! I'm writing from the chaotic and messy Phnom Penh, i needed some city-life!

Yo!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Laos

China Part 3

2008-12-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/China2

Yes, yes, still China, and i love it!

Time is flying by and weeks are restlessly accumulating, leaving beautiful memories, emotions and much more hardly describable... the world is in my hand!
In these last 2 months i quit looking for answers and definitions about this country, that just limited myself to live it and, maybe, thinking about it in the end, it should works!

So, i left you at Chengdu, another huge Chinese city, definitely better than Xian, at least here i've seen the sun!
Some talks with foreigners and locals, much more open-minded and definitely far from what i've seen till now, everything is possible!
No more buses, new ways of wandering around is to catch lifts on electrics scooters: no pollution, 2 words in Chinese and off you go! Crossingthe city till the next traffic light, belly laughs and ubiquity!

But like in all these big cities you end up that you can't wait to leave them and find yourself on the road, looking for less people and more adventures; therefore leading south, next stop is Leshan: the Big Buddha
70 meters tall is the tourist attraction, but sleeping in the uni camp doing mayhem with students and climbing over the walls eluding guards and cameras has been the adventure: some scratches i got, balanced by tons of adrenaline and most importantly my small revenge against the regime!

The hot has still to come: Gongga Shan, a 7500 mt high mountain, at the Eastern entry of the Tibetan plateau, which has glaciers sliding of 4000. I was there with this Chinese walking on it trying not to fall in a chasm and hoping to see the peak, chronically clouded.
In fact after 2 hours walk jumping over ice: there it is the peak, and there are clouds, ahhhh, 2 days i'm here for you God of the mountain cum'on...
The Chinese friend rubbs his hands and start reciting the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum", i copy him full of hope... all Tibet is with me cum'on...
After 15 minutes praying with closed eyes my crazy friend starts screaming "Gongga Shaaaaaan!" Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Slowly the clouds open up and there it is: the peak in front of me! Like 2 morons jumping on ice singing and laughing, and for my first time after my communion at 12 i prayed again and it worked well, and this scares me a lot!

Gazing at it for a while eating crappy cookies, greetings to the village at the feet of the mountain and off again, hitchhiking first on a heavy truck and then with 2 crazy chinese riding motorbikes
with amps on their backs, guitars strapped and with operating microphones!

Afterwards here i am in Litang, which is not officially Tibet but people are99% Tibetan, a stunning town dipped into a stunning landscape filled with stunning people: smiling farmers, holy monks and smiling kids: before conceiving one, i want to photograph all of them, all around the world!

I spent 2 weeks between Litang and Dali together with a good French travelmate (ma vaf...!) great friend. We went from small villages to big monastries, riding tractors and crappy chinese bikes; in those 2 weeks i wasn't in China, i was in a sunny limbo at high-flying, with all these different people and amazing landscapes!
The only clouds i've seen in Deqin, height 4000, and much more than clouds, snowstorm!
Then, by bus 6 hours were needed to cross the mountain and go to Zhongdian (Shangri-la), but after 5 h we were trapped 10 km from departure point, shoveling snow and fixing the bus, panic!

I was wearing washerwoman's gloves at my feet, trying to not freeze, and i finally got the idea of leaving the bus and jumping on a 4wd. After a few hours we were out of snow! Safe asses and boiling tea restoring throat and feet, and i'm fed up of mountains!

Shangri-la e Lijiang, in Yunnan province, are nice towns but hypertouristic, and the beautiful landscapes around were covered by bad weather, therefore some rest in hostel, some chats with other foreigner and Chinese backpackers, yeah sometimes is nice to have a rest.

Slowly getting out of amazing Tibetan area i was entering the heart of Yunnan, where minds become more and more south-east Asian and nature starts to be more exotic, palm trees and bamboo and go-goo.
I got to Dali unaware of many good surprises: a nice and easy going old town, surrounded by walls, to the east by a lake and to the west by a mountain, a micro ecosystem, like from the books.
In Dali live's around various ethinc groups, some foreigner seeking to relax and some artists escaping from the chaotic Beijing, why? Because at the side of the streets Ganja grows freely!
I found myself in a little Amsterdam much more chilled, relaxed and even performing!
I play on it well, having 2 weeks of holiday from my travel, and together with some Japanese hyppies i made my first juggling performance on the street paying myself a dinner and learning to walkon the rope! Yeah!
Bongo drums, guitars, juggling, cookies, nice music, girls and spliffs, great holiday!

One day i got this great idea of climbing up the mountain with a bike on my shoulder: 3 hours with my lungs outside and my tongue touching my feet, i really thought to end it up there... but then, maybe allucinated, i saw a spring and a path, my saviour!
Some relaxing under the roar of the waterfall and then a new adventure: 30 mins downhill on a gravel road without brakes, the sun was setting and i was soooooooooooo free! yeah! Love this life!

Oh, so many stories...! And that sunday evening, cradled by space cake and Japanese electronic music i got this proposal of learing kung-fu! Kung-fu? Who cares? Ok let's do it!
7 days of cleaning up myself inside and outside: no bad habits, vegan food, jogging at 7 am and 6 hours trainig every day in a monastry up in the mountain with an excellent lake view.
Far from everything and everybody you learn to manage all the power inside of you. Well not all, let's say 5%. It was enough, power is in my hands!

Ok buddies, it's time to leave. On the road again, 2 weeks left in China and i want to make them mine: thumbs up, heading south.
Trucks, vans, 4wd, suvs and deluxe cars made in China brought me to Dehong, at Burma's border, there i literally walked on the border, after that bridge Burma was waiting for me, but burocracy obstruct me; i will make it one day, Burma remains as a target, especially after this meeting with an Indo-Burmese family, who was speaking to me in third person: instead of "Do you want some coffee?" they were saying "This brother wants coffee?" Thank you, brothers.

Huh, again: the afternoon spent drinking Chinese wodka with some policemen out of service that brought me back home with the police van, 1000 lifts from 1000 smiling Chinese, a day spent with actors and a cinematic troup that were making a movie about old China, a trip on soft hills candy-shaped and in a huge cave with lights, shadows and stalactites. Then i got in this small nameless town, and i found myself amongst girls dancing with fluorescent yellow clothes and beating drums; i tought it was a wedding or something, in the end i found out it was a funeral... but the crowd was more attracted be me than by the rituals... mah...

Now i'm in Xishuangbanna, extreme south, land of elephants. Sadly i have no time, i'm running as my visa expires tomorrow, yeah it's timeto change buddies!

The draw finally chose for... Laos!
Then, avoiding the unforeseen, the next days i should be jumping on the Mekong river and starting a new adventure: South-east Asia!

Goodbye China, land of talking calculators, neon lights, ugly buildings with swimming pool tiles, 1 bathroom for each village, meals so hot and spicy that afterwards you feel like a spitfire dragon, hectolitres of boiling tea, toilet paper instead of napkins, "fuck offgood manners", people smiling, pushing, spitting, smoking, screaming, kids that love to play with me, that cry at my sight, beautiful girls, beautiful girls, mountains, clouds, anti-smog masks, electric scooters, crappy carts, full optional aircon suv, martial arts,communism, capitalism, buddhism, daoism, atheism, psycological terrorism and much, too much more.

The only regret i have that i couldn't find time to tattoo my name in Chinese on my biceps, a good reason to come back!

In China i coined my first aphorisms (!),
editing already existing ones:
1 - It doesn't matter where you arrive, but where you start
2 - I'm not looking for myself, but for all the rest

I will skip the enigmatic solution, you can think about it if you want, let's say that both, the end and the begin are connected in a circular process, metaphysic but in the end easy and honest: don't forget your roots and keep your eyes wide open...

Finally, closing this all-knowing moment, let me say, frankly speaking to the whole world: i'm not the first in telling, neither in doing it,but if you have something running through your head, a revolutionary idea or a foolish thing... if you wanna travel around the world or set up family, fuck off everybody or get yourself into politics, open up an ice cream shop at North Pole or a beach umbrella shop in the Sahara desert... go for it: don't let fear fuck you like a bitch or time crumbling you like a statue, everything is possible, really, you just need to want it most of all.
On my side hope and think of reaching it on time: both in front of a monitor numbed by a render or on a Tibetan cart chasing the sun i always try to squeeze it and making it mine, this great stuff that continues, changes, turns around and pushes: life.
If you rather want things to stay exactly the same, well, it would be nice, but this is the hardest challenge... good luck!

New millennium Absolute relativism, bros!

Xie Xie China, fuck you all!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/China2

China Part 2

2008-10-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/China1

Coming on my way on the road:

The first 4 chinese weeks have held wonderful surprises andadventures, together with first stomach problems!
From Mongolia to China it's been a drastic change of places, people, culture and also regarding my means of travel: couchsurfing not always available, hence hostel's life as a consumed and bearded traveller; movements and destinations with no obligations and time schedule, then i was completely free but without couch's comfort, moreover without lonely planet, that helps you and spoils you too much, instead i used dirty and oily paper written in chinese!

Every day I found myself trying to make it real, talking with hands and feet in front of baffled and confused chinese, but often nice and friendly, what a strive!

But what a pleasure to see myself on those everlasting trains and buses cought on the fly at ludicrous times, on those cars and motorbikes that, hitchhicking, brought me to scattered villages, and wonderful landscapes!

Actually most of time i've been lucky: once understood the meaning ofthe word "to wait", unknown before, i realized that when everything seem useless and nonsense, you just wait and take it easy, and usually some English spoken or helpful person comes along and fixes your problems, that's Asia! You trust him blindly and he turns into your best friend for 5 mins or 10hours - if we travel together for a while!

Beijing: thought to enter in Blade Runner, instead i found the last 3 sunny days thanks to olympic factory-closed, that once reopened had painted the sky in this black-yellowish quite worringly!
A city nice, clean, tided up and even smelling nice, where everything is working, nobody steps on something wrong, nobody hoonks the horn, and billions of policemen, militaries and volunteers assure that everything works fine, to show the world that Chinese know a thing or two!
With my bike riding trough 5 internal highways cadging lifts to electric bikes I made myself at home, with many new friends, and moving first steps into chinese cuisine, renaming myself "king of chopsticks".

A nap inside the boring Forbidden City after a sleepless night, a tour in the Hutong (once upon a time many and ancient, now few and air-con restored), an official session of tea degustation, a martial arts lesson in the Temple of Heaven park, including meditating whiplashes, chats with local artists and beauty girls but dreadfully shy and many other things made my week in Beijing amazing!

Then a journey to the Great Wall: 5 hours hike under a burning sun retracing the past between a tower and the next, with also an injury: broke a toe's nail due to the crappy sandals bought in Ulan Bataar!

Afterwards i found myself on that train, oh my god that wagon! 9 hours with all of China inside it. 1.3 billions inside that wagon, sat on the floor over layers of nut skins, various, shit and spits, hung on luggage-rack and on each other's lap, there was everybody!
While i was writing my diary i turned quickly and counted the heads spying me from behind: 13! 13 smiling heads peeking intomy Italian dull writings!

Then on the road again, in the old city Pingyao, in Luoyang in caves with giant buddhas, in Shaolin Temple where the famous martial artshad begun peeking movements of young students, then in Hua Shan climbing the breathtaking and sacred mountain for 8+8 hours with daoist hermits looking for some friendship, in the Mao's museum (where he's the god!) and on the Yellow river standing under yellow waterfalls! Yeah!

On the road every day many involving meetings with Chinese chatting uptheir funny English and some foreigner among which a Ghanese eating hard-boiled eggs at 6am that proposed me to stop in China teaching english for 6 months!

In Xian the Terracotta Army knocked me down: 3 days in bed with fever, intestinal war and mud under my feet, healing my wounds... I knew, it's part of the game: some overboiled soup, some meditationand 48 sleepy hours put me back on my feet, ready to enter Sichuan, where I am now, the one afflicted by earthquake few months ago: that bus passed throught the epicentre amid wrecked houses and tents, getting ready for the freezing winter, and people working hard to rebuild anything before the snow kicks in...

I went in a Tibetan village inside a mega natural park enriched through coloured lakes, talking live with Tibetans, eventually!
I've heard both the sides of Tibet struggle, and here things have another perspective, points of view are different and the truth is just a matter of ideals... too complicated.. but the people are amazing!
Here i am in Chengdu having some rest and washing some clothes, an touring around this huge city asking for lifts to anything moving.

My idea at the begin was september China-Tibet, october Nepal and november India, but for different reasons something has changed: chinese visa got extended and october will be with ease in Sichuan and Yunnan, afterwards let's see! Vietnam, Laos or Burma?

China is not easy, you must be ready and keep aside many bias, but then like my ghanese friend said: "In China you can enjoy yourself!", and i trust his words!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/China1

China Part 1

2008-10-10T04:36:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/China1

China. This country is dazzling me.

Far, so far away from dear old west, dear old Europe, eventually i welcome myself in the new Asia. Asia which runs, grows and changes so quickly, faster than our lazy and half closed European eyes can realize.
In these 4 weeks i learnt many things, i had big surprises and i sustained my own "absolute relativity theory", key to understand what is so far from us.
I didn't know what to expect from this country, maybe i was just scared by many partial comments and news spread outside the wall, then i entered on my feet - aware, frightened by all this police and all this censorship.

Actually my first approach with police has been intimidating: the subversive material in my bagpack (2 books about buddhism, 1 of them a gift from a mongol lama) have been confiscated at customs, them stating that "in this country religion is not allowed".

From then on i started entering these people's mind. Accustomed to being ruled by tyrants working for the supposed welfare of people, since centuries; in fact it's not easy to keep 1.3 billion people calm, it seems the only possible way to do: set straight rules and shut the mouths of chatterboxes.

Therefore this is the rule: "In China you can do whatever you want, just don't break the rule, or we'll cut your hands".
Looking at it, in 2008 actually there's not much to worry about. I've seen many foreigners move up here to work and i've seen them well and free, even chartered between all those almond eyes. All those rules are not scarying capitalism!

Chinese minds don't have concepts like jump off the queue or not paying bus ticket, most of them respect rules for the common wealth, on the other side they spit on the floor in great style and they scream, they scream at each other, shut uuuup!

Let's say that the average chinese's goal is to be equal to his fellows, and this bottom-up socialism often works well. That's why they all want same things: they take pictures in the same places and go to the toilet at the same time, they are Chinese!
Copying is good, is friendship and we all are happy!

Sometimes i would have kicked some of them, but then i realized that this is their way of being, their society, as much as our supposed individualism tends to differentiate and customize us extremely, until we are all customized and, in the end, all the same.

I've spoken to many, well educated Chinese and all of them gave me exactly the same answers about China and the outside world, keen answers and functional about being Chinese. It is cool, in reverse to what we think in Europe.
All those answers amazed me. Is this be because of a regime?
Maybe, but it's really interesting to see how they look at us, we think we are the good, the nice and the rich, we are not the only ones!

Thought to see slave in a chain and i've seen bow-tied business man, riding electric scooters in traffic jams between suvs and old carts.
Thought to be the only one with mobile phone but i'm the jinxed, youngsters have blackberries and fashion hairstyle, juxtaposed to my reddishbeard and dirty clothes!
Thought to see only foreigner travellers, but behind me are flows ofChinese tourists on holiday well equipped and shouting, ready to take thousands of pictures and buy all the same souvenirs!Thought to see atheism ruling but buddhists, daoists and muslims in their typical dress are sharing mobile phones and basket shoes, and they eat together at kfc.

In their mind they are free, happy and they have some money in their pockets. They see themselves better than Europe and eating easy USA, owned by the hated (at least we agree on one thing) G W Bush.

To finish this pathetic attempt explaining China in few lines i content myself by saying that here true or false , right or wrong doesn't exist, we have just different points-of-view, ours is one, sometimes a bit blurred, and their is one other, sometimes a bit... Chinese!

Obviously i've seen just a small part of this huge country and i say what my eyes have seen, generalizing it is foolish and impossible.
Other backpackers told me about experiences opposite to mine and opinions different from mine.

What i try to do, is, to detach from taught history and stereotypes, pretending to know nothing, avoiding endless arguments; i prefer to be neutral and to look at things with their almond eye still for a while - in the end it's also funny!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/China1

Mongolia

2008-09-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Mongolia

Yo!

Skeggis Khan Hordes climbed the Great Wall and after Mongolia weare ready to get acquainted with far away China.
4 weeks spent in Mongolia have been absolutely amazing: a journey through time, space and mind of this nomad people, leaving meunforgettable memories.

Ulan Bataar tries to be a cosmopolitan and fashionable capital city, and it works out well to the eyes of young mongolians thirsty for mondanity. But to our western eye this city is quite far from
cosmopoliticy!
The rest of Mongolia, which is more or less 5 times bigger than Italy, is made of nature, fucking big and wild nature, just like centuries ago!
From time to time you can find some ger (typical mongolian tent) along the unpaved road (well it's more like a path in the grassland) or up some hill, where mongolian nomads store their life, living by subsistence breeding hores, cows, sheep, goats, yaks etc... under the amazing mongolian sky.
Some of them have electricity and an old black&white tv, but the most of them don't know about tv shows and go to bed when sun sets; time here has a totally different meaning!
I was lucky enough to stay alone with this nomad family for a couple of days, living the daily routine: catching horses, drinking mare's milk, collecting dry cow's shit for the fireplace, staring at infinte grassland, playing with children and so on.. think i learnt a lot about them, and also about myself and my antibodies: soap and toiletpaper are they really so important?

I was living in UB in a weird and amazing place with some 20 couchsurfers (what a funny mess!), sleeping in ger and having the chance to spend 20 days wandering around in the countryside, together with other great travelmates and a mongolian russian-speaking driver called Aruhk. Communicating with this guy has been a tough experience, but now we are best friends and we know what "living in the desert" means!
Our main conversation was about "Paaaaaashli !!!" russian translation for"Leeet's gooo!" and "italian pasta" at lunchtime, together with"Sotomayo!" which has no sense in any language but it sounded good to me, and we used it in tough moments, and tough moments we had!

Anyway, riding on the roof of this wrecked russian van provided by our host, sitting on the fifth wheel next to petrol tanks i dipped into amazing and neverending landscapes: grasslands with green hills lasting 3 travel days.
Volcanic lakes, flatlands so flat that you can see the earth's roundness and the smashing Gobi desert: don't know who built it, but he was loaded with tons of creativity: huge sand dundes next to green fields with streams and camel'shit, hi and low mountains, lunar landscapes, canyon, cliffs, rocks and so on...! wow, unbelievable, and wild.

We had the hardest time when crossing a stream 1 meter deep and the vandied halfway.
The water slowy started entering from the bottom of the door: freezing and panic for a while, our lives are packed into dirty and dusted backpacks and i didn't want to mangle my passport or blow water out of my beloved ipod... the world was standing still...
But the wise and brave Aruhk knows when it's the right time, he talked a little with the van, relaxing it, and after a few minutes when the water was almost at our heels, windows completely steamed and the engine fan splashing water to the inside of the van, slowly and hesitatingly we made it, we got out of the water!
Yeah! Claps and shaking hands, smiling and whiping sweat from our forehead. We felt survivors for a while, now we needed whiskey!

Afterwards i eventually made friends with yak (with his everlasting fashionable haircut), camel (in his hump there's a real tap for drinking!), i walked into herds of cows, sheep and goats, who's lifes consist in farting happily, eating and farting again! I took a ride on mongolian horses, the ones Genghis Khan used to conquer the world with, sat on that iper-thin saddle (and your ass feels the pain) and i fed myself with mongolian main food: horse's mare milk!
In everyway: fermented, yogurtized, salty, vodkized, but never, never fucking normal milk!
This is life down here!

And what to say about life in UB: party up for mongolian gold medals at the olympics with concerts, public madness and fireworks in main square behind Gengis Khan!
2 days in a rock concert with crappy mongolian bands and friendly hardcore supporters; the black market where you can find everything and everything can find you, from a screw to a sheep's head for snack(!); stepping into buddhist monasteries, listening to mongolian throat-singing and spending many nights with good friends and crazy travellers at Sabina's place: who came to Mongolia must have something to say!

When i was in the train running to China i was still staring out the window at the mongolian landscape, flowing by and a sense of completeness came to me; my mind was heading backwards to all those places and moments, all those pictures in my mind shaping a huge painting, where there's no man's presence, the starring is just nature,still and pure nature.

It's hard to describe how it feels, being witness of such an amazing portrait, such an amazing world!
Time doesn't exist, it stopped many years ago: feelings of peace and harmony with mountains, sun, wind and animals are in front of your eyes, you can touch it, you can touch feelings!

All is so big, so untouched and so fucking pure; human beings are guests here, nature is still ruling and your mind flies across everything, above the mountains and above the clouds, and that moment of peace and purity is still in front of me, and it will be forever.
How lucky i am, contemplating, in silence.
I love this world.

I still see myself on that roof, shouting out my happiness, running against the wind, breaking for a while the for ages lasting silence.
For a while being part of it, making it mine, my Mongolia.
We have too many comforts and too much concrete, and when you leave those things behind and your eye focuses on all this paradise you begin to wonder where the hell we are going... is the present day really better than the past?Are we really happier?

I just wish we won't regret what we are losing cause it will be too late.

In the meantime, i enjoy this world, it belongs to all of us!

Thank You Mongolia!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Mongolia

Russia Part 2

2008-09-16T04:20:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Russia

Ladies and Gentlemen i'm writing the second Russian blog from an internet cafe in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia's Capital city!

Just arrived today, at sunrise of my 26th Birthday, and waking up in oceanic Mongolian steppa has been the best gift to me!
Crossing the Mongolian border signed, sadly, the end of my Russian experience, here's a short resume:

I left you at Urals: Ekaterinburg is the first city of asian Russia (ah, Asia...) where i entertained myself with nice Russian meals and wodka standard! I fed my well-known passion for geology in a guided tour in French discovering Ural's geologic beauty with a power stone gifted to me by
the nice French-Russian guide; on that train i made acquaintance with a 40 years old lady photograper, who insisted to show me her 300 or so pictures printed out in huge format on north Urals, nice eh... the first 10 of them!
DA DA DA photographisky, harasho harasho!

2 days on a train and i got to Novosibirsk, biggest city in Siberia, where i stopped longer than planned: i found myself together with other 15 couchsurfers from west-east Europe, Russia and Australia waiting for the life-event: total sun eclipse!
Much more than harasho: incredible! In the sky there was no sun, but a ring of fire and for 2
minutes the whole world stopped, breath-taking in this amazing atmosphere: the sky painted with stunning darking colours, animals and human beings going crazy and screaming out of joy or fear, just like apocalipse! Many pictures shooted, none of them give back the idea...
Afterwards a bit of a nice rest and then on the road again...

After 2 more trainy days and 8 hours on this crappy bus i got to Baikal lake, where i spent 2 days on Olhkon island hiking and looking at amazing landscapes, where Sciamans use to call for spirits with throat singing and some drug abuse (real punk-rock mood!)
Just beautiful, the view of the lake was like a goal after those 6000km on a train, freedoooom!

Other funny and crazy events brought me to Ulan Ude (still Russia) where Buriat people live and the world's biggest Lenin head stand-up gloomily; there i caught a minibus heading to the mongolian border, crossing small russian villages hidden behind steppland hills and dust.
At the border i got a lift with 3 Spanish guys to enter Mongolia, where i already have too many friends: some foreigners moved to Mongolia and some Mongolian guys willing to practise a rusty English.
I still have a bit of technology in my blood, and then i keep uploading pictures and writing stuff, don't know what will happen after Mongolia!

This is a very short resume of my Russian experience, i'm trying to write down all the details of everydaylifeontheroad in my diary, but i think too fast and i forget things!

Russia gave me a lot, in every sense, and i'll have wonderful memories of this funny and paradoxical country!

Harasho and stay rebel!
Ske

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Russia

Russia Part 1

2008-09-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Russia

Oh yes dear my friends here it is my first travel news:
i'm in NizhnyNovgorod, some hours away from Moscow!

Everything is working out very well, European Russia is the first area where me and my backpack are starring.
St. Peterburg and Moscow are huge cities and a lot of history is hidden behind their back, therefore i transformed myself in a post-communist researcher and i'm collecting stories from books and live memories from real people. That's interesting and funny!
I've met many students and they told me their opinion aboutpast and present. Some of them are optimistic and to others the present is notas "bright as 20 years ago...".
Remember this man from Armenia that found me sitting on a bench in Moscow in the precise time i was reading Armenia's chapter in the book of my asiatic guru Tiziano Terzani; he told me about the past and present of Armenia, Russia and the whole world.

I'm starting to realize that different points of view are leading toall those big different behaviours and thoughts, our mind can be easily influenced by words, slogans and propaganda, and middle to long term, results may be good enough if well planned ahead.
But i should know it already, i'm Italian!

Speaking to people you can hear two kind of stories, one saying that communism was good and the only ones gaining are the ones that bought all structures right after collapse of the union for few rubles (maybe sold by themselves as statal workers), and now they are milionaires and even more powerful than before.
On the other side people say that communism was bad 'cause nobody was free and now everybody is richer and doing wellAnd normal people?
Boh, journalists' profession is not easy: asking question is not enough, you must read between the lines what they really mean and if they are faking or selling the truth, that's the hard job! Under a regime people are not used to think with their own mind, they say what they'vebeen told.
Many people have good welfare but they like to complain (everywhere inthe world), and the ones suffering usually are the ones you can't see or if you see them, you are a bit scared and avoid them, and anyway theycan't speak English! The only thing that seems clear is that there is not only one upright truth above all: all is a matter of a point-of-view and money, and money
may change, well, more than a point-of-view!

Moving to more common themes:
Cyrillic is not that bad, i'm learning how to read and my russian nameis Vladimir (BLADIMIP in cyrillic) and keep in mind: dobre utre = goodmorning, spasiba = thanks, harakho = good stuff (fundamental to say asmuch as you can) and dasvidania = goodbye.

My plane from Milano went to St.Pet that afternoon, july 15, and i feltlike the whole world was in my palm, can you image? My greatest journey has just begun, i still can't believe it!
How amazing it is? How proud do i feel? wow, the whole world in my palm. yeah!

Some good friendship in St.Pet, many km walk from zarist city centre to communist suburbs. Not much party but the party was in my head, some jazz music, some night bridge opened, drinking wine, first pictures and first emotions running trough my veins: freedom!

First night on the train from St.Pet to Moscow was the first adventure: i travelled in the ultracheap class with young people and families, English was a plus that very few had. Then the first impact was weird, for both, me and them: i was the only foreigner and i lookedlike a monkey in the zoo with all those russian asking me questions about Italy and Europe, but sadly they didn't throw me nuts so ididn't have breakfast!

I had splendid time in Moscow, won't say too much but good music and great atmosphere in the suburbs; not much party but the party was in my head (again!).
For some reasons Moscow is not Russia, like London is not England and Paris is not France: people running, money making money making money making, suvs barkin at traffic lights, fashion shops, expensive life, money making, money is everything!
But in this big city you can skip what you don't like and be fulfilled with things you love, so i spent my time at best, without wasting money and enjoying myself!

The first 2 weeks spent quite civilized with metropolitan lifestyle, among russian rude and funny men and beautiful, sooo beautiful fashionable girls walking on 10 cm highheels!
In a few days i should cross Urals and enter Siberia, yeah!

DASVIDANIA!

Foto: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Russia

Ske on the road - Intro

2008-09-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

Here i am (a bit late) in writing down my asian travel blog!

Initially the idea of making a blog was not in my mind, i wanted to keep technology away from me for a while and i didn't want to waste time in an internet cafe when outside the door there's fast-running Asia.

After 2 months i changed my mind: i'm still not missing keyboard and mouse and Asia is still running outhere, but you can't live 100 daysat 100 mph, "if you speed up too much you'll run out of petrol...", therefore some rest is really essential to charge up the batteries, fix the mind into some frames of unforgettable moments and have a laught about the mess and problems found along the way (in the meantime a chinese guy next to me is playing a war game with foam on his lips).

I'm living a wonderful experience, always new and all-changing, involving and without definition; i'm wandering halfway between a nomadic vagrant and a keen journalist, looking for bread to eat and opinions to see, some water or vodka to drink and points-of-view far from mine to be able to have a better view, which takes me even further.

I decided to share some stories with the digital world (in which i was sinking a few months ago), about what is happening to me and also sharing some emotions that i'm living, to remind myself of how lucky i am to be here-and-now and to give me a further shake to continue this amazing journey and tell a bit about it, to an eventual audience, and to myself for a future memory.

Like Nimalaya (my first punkrock band) claimed:
"Fuck your life, live every minute before it's too late, follow your road and you'll be free".

This feeling was there at 16, now i'm 26 and it's time to act

Yeah!