the power of our subconscious mind

I tend to stop writing as soon as I am not in a full traveling mode....I mean I am tour leading and homeing and weekending and discovering anyway, but is not as a committed traveling so I prefer not to keep the blog updated...shame on me...it's a mental thing manipulated by my perfection minded mind!! if it's not a long term travel journey I don't consider it real traveling..!!

The mind....what a mess, how complicated...never enough time we dedicate to safeguard it...

But if we would just stop and listen to it and communicate with it, we might learn the extreme power that lies behind it...how many times did we follow the lead that comes to us in the silence of our soul?

how many times have we actually stopped and "chatted" with our soul?

Find some time, five minutes, maybe the equivalent time to read 4 or 5 notifications on our (yours!!) facebook page or maybe the "liking" of 20 pictures on instagram (can you "like" things too on instagram???) or just the time to get to know what somebody else is doing via whatsapp and that will most likely make no difference to our day...it shouldn't be hard to find 5 minutes......

Give yourself some time, just before going to sleep at night or as soon as we wake up in the morning or just when we find a gap in the chaos of our rat race......give your mind a chance...and be yourself...

street messages in Istanbul

street food in the shoes' manifacture district of Istanbul

a rhyme on the wall in Mostar

postcard from Durmitor, Montenegro

live your life...

Live life freely, you remain an institution and you are still an example and a dream as you used to be...yes still the other side of my comparisons and yes we were too young......I know and learned it's wrong just even the fact that I still think about it....traveling always helps, it does indeed, even if you try to control your temptations as I have done for the last few months......and now I am just at home, as if the last 140 days were not passed..
That's the first thing I thought as soon as I am settling back in my bedroom at home, surrounded by my travel memories and the art I brought back with me...
That's what I want you to know..and I wish I could tell you face to face one day......

if you...

Finding myself for the 5th day in a row in bed after 9 o'clock seems to mean soomething!!
Was I put under pressure from the situation in Nepal? Was I too amazed by Myanmar and Bangladesh before that? Was I waiting too much to get back to my "world"??
Only I know is that the pleasure to squeeze freshly picked oranges and lemons from the trees and peel loquats still warm from the sun at the best of their ripening and the rocky landscapes, and some local seafood dishes and extra palmeras (elephant ear pastries) are making my days quite enjoyable...
This is the pace I should be working on, but I know it won't happen easily knowing myself enough, I am working on finding my middle point, my real priorities and my real calling....
I smile by myself just writing this!!!
But hey, if you were to disappear soon in a new planet, and you could do only one thing, what would it be and what are you waiting for????
I kinda know what it would be, as odd as it re-sounds in my stubborn head, and what am I waiting for then??? I am waiting for time, as it's meant to heal, doesn't it!!! ...it doesn't really work this way!!
I know, I know..it actually makes no sense and it goes against the wise quote I have just presented!!!
I have to admit that is very true that time needs to take his course for us simple human being to realise certain lessons from life...see number 3 below!!!
I don't expect to solve things from the past, nor I believe is achievable, as I know it's unrealistic, but I want to make sure my feelings and emotions are fair and clear...

some of the rules of life, I happen to feel relieved reading this daily (if I find time!!)...

Mediterraneo

A great sunshine, a light summer sun and beautiful shades of sea colours....some taste of the traditional sobrasada and some local wine..the sea water is still cold for my standards, but not for the tourists that from central and northern europe enjoy a "too good to be true" place even out of season!!
I am in the middle of the mediterranean sea and I always enjoy the quality of life Spain can give and here in particular I think is quite "top"...yes, it's difficult to be a vegetarian and following a healthy diet is a bit of a complicated task, but I am working on that with a open minded flexibility....I guess I had enough of south eastern asian cuisine, I am glad to enjoy mediterranean flavours, they are more mine if I have to be honest..I feel and I am mediterranean, as much as I love my travels and my gypsying around...
I have been nearly perfect in managing my temptations and controlling my desires and keeping my weakness calm and tied in the last four months on the road in the east side of the world...
You only know that you love something or somebody when you let it go, and if you try to totally switch it off you get the deeper meaning of it, now I know, even if it's too late...it's not easy to delete things from your heart, maybe it will never happen, even if you try to keep your mind busy busy busy....
I find myself in that "self evolution" stage where things are getting clear and it's like understanding which is the right degrees for your reading glasses finally...
It's little weird to be here, yet very needed, my body is asking for relax and food!!!strange indeed...

view from the restaurant where I had lunch today...

stepping through Italy

In the repubblic of bananas everything is possible....I got back in my own home country...(and I am actually already out)..and today while in Milan I try to be a bit trouble around...
I happened to take part casually to an inauguration of a very interesting event based on bio and km 0 food, an educational weekend where people and kids can learn more about their diet and their future gardens..
In a strategical time for Italy that is hosting the Expo precisely in Milan with the pseudo/fake message of "feeding the planet, energy for life"...kindly sponsored by the two most unpronouceable sponsors from the US!!!
And that's where I couldn't refrain myself and ask them what was their feeling and reaction to that...
Obviously I just wanted to pinch them as I didn't expect a fair reply, it was me back in my country trying to put the spanner in the works here and there as I often do....
There must be a reason if I cannot live and spend long time in my own country, I see the potential of me getting in trouble or being unable to accept the game of the system...
It's good to see friends though and as I am not home yet I am positively taking my friend's energies for now.... after four full months away and my stubborn not social approach it results kinda little needed...

half way back...

It seemed quite obvious (to me..) that after four months spent in Asia my return in Europe would be in the city that is considered a shared city (maybe the only one in the world located in two continents..) in between...
It seemed quite obvious to me once in Istanbul to do as "istanbulls" do, and quite needed I would say, experience an hammam or turkish bath and get scrubbed and washed the local way after months on the road and months in some seriously unaccommodating accomodations..
I guess Istanbul was the obvious choice and I am pleasantly enjoying the mediterranean breeze already after so much polluted air.....
It was my first time in a real hammam and I chose as usual the least touristy I could and where the big guy was rougher than the hand scrub he used on me and the only english word in his vocabulary was "OK"!!! I let the experience captivate me and I seriously enjoyed..
The place was very vintage and has been used since 514 years for the purpose...
I have to admit that I openly accepted the tradition and laughed alot, being played as a puppet or better as a barbie played by a young girl...(I imagine already my parents being treated like this in two weeks when we are coming back to spend some family time together here in the turkish capital..)

a message from Kathmandu...so true..

A moral slap...

One of the things I started to appreciate in this journey, that is ending today, is getting a weekly (or whenever available) a massage, preferably from a blind person.
I had found a company also here in Kathmandu, but due to the earthquake their place has been closed since.
I have to admit that blindness is something that really touches me, I have noticed and learned it even more when in Thailand at the temple retreat I practiced some walking meditation with eyes closed!!
Please try yourself to do the most basic and simple thing that you do everyday with the eyes closed, it's test and see how you feel after just 60 seconds!!!
Today I managed to get in touch with the guys of the company as I hoped (no chance!) to get a last day massage, I asked instead if I could actually make a donation to them as I believe people with disabilitiy in events like disasters have harder time then everybody else...
The young man on the other side of the phone with a pleasant english and a bright voice replied me with a short and sharp sentence that I have been thinking all day about and that it adds up to the important quotes of my life from today...
He said: "We are just visually impaired, there are people that need more help than us!!"...We are JUST visually impaired!!! At first I have to admit that this sentence left me speechless, but after few hours I started to see the deeper meaning of it, a meaning that can be read also under a different way..(or at least I do!).
All of us are visually impaired in some ways, cause yes we can see with our eyes (or through glasses!) what surrounds us, the material things around us, but we cannot really fully see the reality, the energies and most likely the real meaning of what is actually just next to us even if we could describe it perfectly...
My way to help Nepal has been a little different and unusual in this last few days, I have decided to pour my money into the street people!
I believe that much of the suffering, in this cases, is also finding the strengh to restart from a cracked or damaged or collapsed house, the motivation to get back and live as normally as you would have just before the earthquake and just feel as if nothing happened..
Many of the people that live in and of the street, maybe a old lady selling a bunch of lady fingers, or few ginger roots, or the young kid helping his father to sell spices, or just the man selling fruit at the corner of the road..the tea stall owners or the public bus drivers, the rickshaw guys..
Nobody will go and help them, nobody will support their disappointment and the international aids won't care of the despair of the normal people that are luckily alive and able to continue living..
Mine has been a thought that considered also the "moving the economy", the getting back the enthusiasm for life and not giving up, as well as satisfying a whim or just being able to buy back something that the earthquake took away!!
Simply I have been just buying basic simple things of local life as a 10 rupees freshly made lemon soda, or a handful of peas (worth 20 rupees), or a pen or some street food and paying them to a fix price of 1000 rupees (10 US$)..
All things that the few tourists around won't dare to buy, or people they wouldn't even think to approach, a part of the society that lives a miserable life already without a major disaster...
I guess it's obvious that the funds collected on the this blog and from friends and acquaintances will go to the association of the visually impaired.

Adventur..ing Nepal

Power shortages, that are common in Nepal, seem normality now even for me that I haven't experienced the pre-earthquake country, I have met a Nepal that is not what it usually is and I am amazed to discover every day the curiosities and the odds of this country, that has the only non-quadrilateral national flag in the world! (did you know??)
Nepal that is debating from one side with India for the birthplace of Buddha and on the other sharing an incredible character and charisma with neighbour Tibet, and possibly nothing at all (at least for now!!) with China!!
Today I did something that I enjoy doing often when I am more than a limited time in a city, I jump on a random bus that goes somewhere and I see what happens...
The young assistant of the driver didn't even care where I wanted to go as long as he had a extra person to squeeze in his bus, though neither I did; I got off in Banepa that is the part of the country that has experienced an important number of the hundreas tiny aftershocks and in a part of the country that I was actually interested in visiting before coming and before my plans were reset..
After lunch, at 3pm, I made up to go by bus to the next village and from there hike till another one, that according to the three people I had asked was 45, 30 and 180 minutes walking time!!! I trusted the two out of three law of right and wrong!!
While a stray cow sits in the middle of the main road and four five stray dog start to bully her, three goats (not stray), are tied to a shutter trying to chew whatever the wind blows around them!!
A men on a motorbike just honks even if he is just standing still and has no car around and has not yet started his engine!!... but I guess you cannot ask an italian not to gesticulate, it's an habit, it's rooted in the culture..as well as spitting in Nepal...
I naively ventured on the packed bus heading up the hills, the bus stopped in a village for half an hour and then went back the same and only road dropping me off in the town I had initially asked to be dropped off and that we had passed on the way up and that was just one km away!!...mysteries of Nepal, I experienced the same yesterday, but I blame their lack of english and their poor foreigners handling!
My hike started at 16:28 as I was told by a bunch of local villagers in Nala that with a good walking speed I could get to Nagarkot, the town I had decided to reach and from where I could have got on a bus back to Kathmandu, in 2 hours!
They also promised that villagers on the way would have pointed out my way..
My compass was the sun that was already on his way down behind the hills on my left on side!
After only 30 minutes I come across a tiny village surrounded by cornfields on one side and layers of empty rice fields on the other..
It was tea time in Tukucha Nala and I decided to take a break as my walking was fairly fast..
A quarter of the village, maybe 8 people were sitting there and staring at me coming out of nowhere...few houses heavily damaged, a kid peeing on the side of the road down the ravine, a couple of chickens here and there while the other half of the village slowly flocked there at the tea house slash restaurant slash grocery store..
The comunication was in nepali language, so one side only with me smiling and namasteing when the crowd stopped talking!!
I managed to realise that from there it could have taken me 2 hours to my destination so I wondered if there was a vehicle that I could have jumped on to facilitate my goal before dusk...
A motorbike will take me to Nagarkot, 30 minutes of the bumpiest and most uncomfortable ride through few other villages, 3/4 crossroads with no people or houses around, few streams of water and a cool thick forest..obviously by walking it would have been impossible to make it in two hours by myself without getting lost...even the guy driving me was not sure at a certain point on which direction go!!the total distance is 13 km!!
I arrived in Nagarkot just on time to hear from a young boy that there were not buses leaving the village at that time as it was too late, so the only option was a taxi or the big truck that was happening to pass by..
A windy road on the back of a sturdy white truck carrying big plastic water tanks broken by the earthquake..volume super high of traditional nepali music, the assistant kept slapping on the side of the door to communicate with other vehicles on the road and on the dashboard to communicate with his own driver that kept honking no matter what...
I arrived in Kathmandu well past sunset time but slapped by a great unexpected serendipity day...

life (or show!!) must go on....

Do you have cold drinks? I ask....Whisky, beer?? the lady of the grocery store replies!!it's 4:30 pm and I am not even in the busiest street of Thamel (the tourist quartier of Kathmandu)..that at 7 pm is already back pumping loud music and live dance performances in the exclusive disco bars!!!
The breakfast at my hotel is very filling, for this reason I am asking to get the eggs boiled so I can take them with me and leave them around in town; I stopped a rickshaw man, as I have seen them sleeping in their "vehicle" at night and have a miserable life, and offered them to him...I am sure he didn't understand my intentions and he replied, "do you smoke? I have good ashish!!!" (ashish that in hindi language means blessing by the way!!!)
The capital is getting back to his usual life; israeli, and not only, tourists are slowly coming back or out of their hotels or cheap guesthouses and the game is on again..
Somewhere else in the country maybe somebody is still waiting to get a shelter above his/her head, but life is cruel and we should know it by now....
I have been visiting shyly and discreetly the two historical towns few kilometres out of the city of Kathmandu (Bhaktapur and Lalitpur) that were seriously hit, where some buildings are standing thanks to big wooden poles, sometimes with signs on it asking to drive slowly!!! A lot of destructions and a lot to rebuild, and the people cannot do much more than slowly return to their usual lives, with markets and shops slowly getting to normality, a normality that anyway was not as rosy even before the disaster!
It's easier to find food and pretty much whatever you need, everyday there is a new place re-opening, and I am pleased to have available the popular steamed momos as option for my meals. (momo is the tibetan-nepali for dumpling or raviolo).

locals relaxing just opposite the Durban square of Lalitpur

kids asking for chocolates (or posing for pictures!!)....

a lady proudly cooking Newari food in Bhaktapur

little bit of volunteering..

Our assigned task today was to scout an area in the eastern part of Nepal at 60km from the chinese border, to find out the situation in villages where help has not arrived yet...
Yes it might sound strange that two foreigners would do that, but me and Jonnhy, an enthusiastic and ambitious irish guy met at the hospital, have joined a group of local nepali, met at the hospital, that are trying to make things work instead of waiting for their corrupted government.
I am not giving up, I am trying to accept that it's not a easy situation to handle and I am promising to give my best even if it's a very difficult task right now; our team, illegally and disturbingly followed by a troupe of a indian TV, was a truck with food and plastic shelters and a car with volunteers..
The very badly damaged from the earthquake road took us after 3 hours to a town where two big rivers meet and that's where we were dropped off, with some medicinals in our backpacks and the mental strenght to get as much as we can out of the villagers, there was the option hiking to some of them but the heat and the mobile phone and the meeting of some helpful people stopped us..
What we found out is a country with a chicken without head organization and where the upset militars were apologising with us for it, a country that is receiving plenty of funds but that most likely will end up far from the necessities of the population, (at times) a little compassionate and little community minded society that it's not supporting the people that really require assistance right now.
Nepal as India has his casts and of course in events like this is where you see the real difference amongst them...the Sudra, the lowest cast people, though, are getting annoyed and aggressive...
Also because this is the majority of people I have been coming across in the hospital where I have been helping a little bit and where I have met the most tragic part of this catastrophe so far..
A lot of village people in their traditional outfits, mainly kids and elderly, some of them arrived a little too late to the hospital and maybe paying the price of poor education, have experienced amputation of arts just because they left their wounds or broken legs get infected...
Nepali young people are trying their best and I am here to sustain their will even if for a little time!

let's forget the past...

greetings from this cute young girl in Kathmandu old town...

Donations welcome for Nepal

My first step today has been going to the main hospital in Kathmandu and register to the volunteer's desk set up just outside and that seems very active; many young nepali are showing up and mainly in the daytime not much efficient help is possible..I will try later in the evening as it seems a little more of a needed time.
I managed to donate blood though, even if I come from Bangladesh and even if it was 2pm and I had had a good breakfast, and even if we were using beach chairs to lie on and there was no medical tape, but I guess every little help is good right now..
I am committing part of my budget planned for this trip to actually buy food and help here personally as the international aids are not reaching sometimes the people that really need and around the city of Kathmandu many villages are complaining and lacking support..
I am providing my paypal account or, if you are in Italy, my postepay number to anyone interested in chipping in and supporting my cause.
My flight back to Europe is on the 8th of may and every donation arriving after that date will not reach as directly as I would otherwise before that!!
Just send me your email address in a comment just below the post or if you have my gmail email account drop me a line and I will give you the details.
Feel free to share it with your friends..
I am not gonna post picture of destructions and suffering, but I will try to get some shots of the smiles and dances of the young kids unaware of what happened to them and their lives, or just of the sun over the Himalaya....

updates from here

Sun and rain alternate themselves over Kathmandu, while locals have been waiting till noon today as it was the 72nd hour from the big heartquake as the seismologists recommend and the media accentuates and people are scared, they are afraid of any little aftershock that till last night kept happening...
The capital is slowly waking up from the nightmare, but it's not easy and it's justifiable, also because for some there is nothing left to restart from, some shops are slowly re-opening and very few tourists are seen around, it's easy for them supported by their government to jump on free flights back home and leave the darkness, the destroyed, the weak behind and show the pictures back home.....
I am not planning to do that, but I am struggling (maybe for my faults) to understand how to practically do something to help, also because some locals seem to be expecting resources to arrive and cash for the rebuilding and everyone is expecting to be told what to do.....initiative and efficiency are clashing at the moment and it's not helping those that really need it, that at least around the area I find myself seem not to struggle as much!!
I am, most likely, not realising and feeling the real truth behind all this as I have lost my "wow factor" some time ago and nothing surprises me or shocks me anymore, but I am here and I feel it's right to support the country somehow, even if I dunno how...and even if the fear of spreading diseases are already being gossiped...
I am quite relaxed so far as I am in good hotel and treating myself with some fresh fruit and some very basic street food that is very sparsely available...

safe (so far) in Kathmandu..

A ghostly city welcomed me, no power, no people as they are all gathering in open spaces under the rain, or at the airport ready to be sent home...
My flight on landing was sent back to Dhaka as Karhmandu was just getting struck again from the aftershocks....so we were put on the national rescue plane that Bangladesh was sending to recover their nationals...extra fuel on before taking off, the captain said, as we might have to wait on air before landing, we ended up staying two hours above the city and then one in the queue to leave the aircraft after the descend..
Some dotted lights in the darkness, and a grey cloud that rurned heavy rain welcomed us in a shocked country, easy formalities and out in the bivouc that scared local and concerned tourists had created outside the building..
I am ok, I am gonna stay here for 12 days and the family vacation is officially postponed to next month...

short (real) stories from Bangladesh...

- The driver had just asked the young coworker (that amongst his duties has hanging out of the door and shout at people to inform where the bus is going!... and help passengers jump on the moving vehicle!!) to check the front tyres cause he heard a noise.

Nothing.. the careless boy gets back on and the driver carries on pushing on his gas pedal with the usual strenght till the third gear (luckily), then a huge blast and the bus that goes little skidding till the he manages to brake it on the side of the road few metres away from some big trees that here work as guard rail and the rice fields just a metre or so below the level of the pavement...

I was sitting just in the front seat just actually above the tyre that exploded and I was the closest to tree if only he had managed to reach the fourth gear!!... little panic in the back of the bus, but in two minutes they all squeezed in another, crowded, bus coming from behind, after having fought to collect the 40 taka (50 eurocent) fare back ..

Only the driver was left and he just looked after me getting me on the next bus coming, that was actually empty and little better quality than the previous two..

I was on my way to a small village closer to the border with the West Bengal province of India and 150 kilometres away from Kolkata, where a huge banyan tree attracts young and older people for pictures...

a couple chilling on one of the roots of the banyan tree...

for the police records...

- "Do you have internet?" I asked the restaurant owner, yes, he smiles and he shows me the five lines of signal reception on his smartphone, the 3G connection is the very big thing here now as well as phones (everybody has got one or more than one!!) and routers providing wifi to share are nearly impossible to find...I struggled with it in the last few days, I managed to find a good one for few hours in a very dark restaurant/bar where young couple meet far from people's (or their parents) eyes and gossip, a very strange dodgy looking place, in a five storey building basement, playing romantic Bangla songs on the large flat screen tv with western and chinese menu...

I get very surprised looks and sneering when (usually it's the third question after "what is your name" and "what is your country") I reply "not married/alone/single!!" to the "are you married?"!!! "Yes it's possible" I say to convince them!!... and they smile!!!

Bangladesh is a muslim country and it feels so indeed, mainly from the few women seen around the streets, no as many calls of prayers coming out of mosques, no many men walking around holding hands...

As I am writing this post there is a little earthquake and we all walk down in the parking level of the 6-7 floors building (my couchsurfing host home) I find myself in, and that's where I have seen as many women altogether as never so far..we are back up after 3 minutes!!!

a little bit the contrary of what I have just written..

- It's elections days in Dhaka (and Chittagong) and my new Bangla friend told me that the city needs two mayors, one for the northern part and one for the southern; there are 70 councils and one woman and one man per council running for the two spots!!

The city is full of A3 papers in black and white with political campaigns messages, I can only understand the picture and the symbol that each candidate has, from the national fish (hilsa) to the kite, from the telescope to the chicken cage!!... as in Sri Lanka, if you remember, to help the illiterate to understand who to vote...

Now my question is, in our countries (so called developed!!) we don't have symbols, for candidates, as we sell ourselves as literate and educated , but how it's possible that politics is still bullshit??!!!
How is possible that we still allow someone just sly and possibly slimy to sell us words like democracy, like rights and economy without real meaning it, why do we still allow these mostly liers being to use the word corruption when they are lobbists themselves..
Let's make politics moneyfree and powerfree and let's see what happens...

vote for the "spinning top" candidate...

- It's a cloudy and rainy and little thunderstom and earthquakes here and there day in Dhaka; tomorrow is my flight and I have decided not to go to the day trip to a small old village nearby as planned, I believe I can survive without it...maybe I will go to market or maybe I will just do nothing and enjoy the fresh air that the rain is taking with...
In the balcony outside of my room a man made pigeon house as I have seen many so far in Bangladesh; some people keep them as outdoor pets or for recreational purpose only and uncaged, others instead (caging them) have them (cooked...) in different spices...

pigeon town....

Banglanised...

The first consideration of this post is a quote that I came across some time ago and that said: Don’t fear death, but life not lived!!

…the other day in the middle of the old town in Dhaka, just when the sky was getting dark, sitting on a scruffy and uncomfortable rickshaw lead by a slim middle aged dark man, stuck in an insane and indescribable traffic where pedestrians were reaching faster their destinations than any other wheeled vehicle around, with thousands of eyes on me, and with hundreds of smiles and head shakes towards me and with not enough oxygen in the air for everyone there, just there in one of the most crowded places I have found myself in, I caught myself thinking that!!

Everyone is scared to die, but how mean would be to do it with little to tell!!...(I just noticed that the death theme is around lately….)

The point is actually not death but life!!! Try to leave your comfort zone, step slowly out of your soft mental cottonwool, give yourself a chance to go out there and get dirty, you cannot imagine how rewarding that can be, in that precise moment I would have done anything to have next to me my parents, or even just my ex, maybe my sister, the people I love, to share that moment that it was simply priceless, breathless!!

Bangladesh is truly embracing me in a warm and genuine hug, “are you traveling alone?” I get asked between 10 and 15 times per day, but I am never alone, I can’t manage to walk more than ten minutes without getting someone stopping to question or welcome me... I have been given business cards and phone numbers from strangers that are willing to make my traveling easier than it already is…

The country is more than unbeaten as destination itself, I haven’t seen any other traveler and it looks like the locals have not either, since very long time..

“Your culture is different from us” Amin, the waiter in a restaurant, told me pointing at me wearing shorts and curious of the bracelets around my ankles!! … “Your country is rich!” Nidaul repeats more than once while he forbids me to pay for my own breakfast, “You are our guest!” Zaman and Khokon remind me paying for my lunch or the traditional tea, with generous sugar and condensed milk, available on any side of the road!

I haven’t been offered though, a fork or spoon so far in any diner, so I am enjoying eating with hands as the old african times and I love it!!

The traffic lights don’t work or exist as they have no sense as everyone breaks every rule, even new ones that they make up themselves right there, so at crossroads you might find a couple of gentlemen in uniform with long and threatening wooden sticks controlling the (dis)order! Or to say, the traffic in Dhaka is sick, illegal, forget Bangkok that in comparison is an enjoyable sunday morning drive in the countryside!!!

Yes, I am struggling little to understand how much my price for everything/anything gets pumped, and when to haggle and when not cause, even then, they are super cheap!!

Everyone in some ways wants a little extra share from the "wealthy" visitor, even the mosquitoes at night are taking advantage…

Yes, I am struggling as well with all the selfies and pictures I get asked to take with random people and with the lack of real “me” time or even space, as I find myself surrounded by twenty or thirty nosy people “checking me out!”…

Yes, I am struggling quite a lot sadly to understand how unfair the world is, how exaggerated and wasteful our lifestyle is compared to nearly any someone here!!

loneliness.....

.....in Bangladesh is impossible...I am a little bit into a wild and remote part of this journey, I am amazed indeed and my diary is enjoying very cool stories for my nephew and eventually kids....

In my last post I talked about reincarnation, that I personally don't believe in, but if that would really be, I would think that in a past life I was some soul, something in India or somewhere around here...!!!

locals wanting to be pictured...(even if they don't look like, see first right!!)

traffic intersection in Dhaka centre...

rocket transportation from Barisal to Hularhat, built in 1928!

it's Bangladesh time..

I am in Dhaka, excited as a 16 years old on his first school trip abroad and I don't really know why, ok, maybe I have to admit that I have a weakness for indian atmosphere and vibes, and India is just next door, yet Bangladesh is meant to be a world on his own, that I am positively looking forward to learn about.....
The welcome hasn't been as easy, actually even more troubled than I can recall my arrival in New Delhi nearly two years ago, as I naively believed the guy from my guesthouse that promised to pick me up from the airport!! After one hour I had to get somebody there to call and remind him!!
Not many people stop here in Bangladesh, not even consider it in their plans, yet surrounded, nearly enclosed, by the big attraction that India is, bordering Myanmar that is there opening up and building slowly a strong touristic reputation and Nepal that tries to keep it high, while Bhutan being the precious one up there.....Bangladesh is skipped, a preconceived deduction that the country has nothing to offer, and maybe that's why I am here?? How many people do you actually know that have been in Bangladesh?
For now I am just excited even to be listening the Hindi and traditional music on the Mtunes channel on the tv in my pleasant and clean room, in the business district few kilometres north of the airport.
I had to leave a wonderful and simple country behind, a country of huge smiles and genuine souls, with a silent yet expressive humanity, that smoothly, I can now say, entered my personal top 10!
The red betel spits from the bus passengers landing on the passing taxis and staining their white doors, the huge amount of underage involved in the daily workforce or the insane amount of street trash (or better your surrounding is your landfill!) cannot cover fully the amazing peace that (somehow!!) reigns, the naively helpfulness and the cute yellow cheeks of the young girls....
In this 19 days, I have been asked more than once if I was "islam" or "christian" or why I was traveling alone and why I was not married yet!!....all questions that I didn't really know how to properly answer considering their social situation...
I could have replied to them "YOLO"!! (You Only Live Once) and explaining somehow that I am trying to experience as much as I can, prioritize some things over others, but on this side of the world where people believe seriously in reincarnation, it wouldn't really work, would it??!!! ...they can potentially do everything in their next life!!!!!

the infamous police station bedroom...(and my bags)

some water festival splashes...

locals and unknown street games...

hitchhiking in Myanmar

I hadn't really got in mind to do it, but actually I was glad at the end I let the old man on the trishaw lead me...I only needed to get to Yangon, the capital and I had all day to do it!
As soon as I walked out of my hotel, he clapped, as they always do, to grab attention, "Shan ma lay" that I thought meant bus station, I tell him, 1000 kyats he say, I smile and I open my palms towards him, then I bring all the fingertips to touch in the middle, repeating it few times!! (that's the sign for 500 kyat here!!), he agrees and I jump on the sellotaped seat next to him.. it's 7:02 am.
After meeting a few trucks carrying some ladies playing recorded buddhist chants, another with a small golden Buddha statue with some hangover looking teenagers holding it and followed by a procession of people and empty streets, we arrive at something that looks like a bus office.
The only bus of the day is complete and left at 7!!..the thrishaw man with his red stained smile, went back to his seat and started to pedaling me somewhere else, he tried his best even crossing in front of a passing bus that was supposedly directed to where I was directed, no chance...
He had a very limited english but he pointed that there was a road were bus passed more often, so he started to gently pedal...rice fields, squeezed snakes on the road, stray dogs playing on the side, some scooters overtaking us and me that I couldn't see any road ahead of us, nor cars..
After 30 minutes I questioned if there really was a road, that I actually knew existed, and he said uhh, uhh that meant maybe there, there pointing ahead of us, but still nothing...his sweat started to fall from his arm on my knee, his cigar smoke coming my way and I started to focus on the landscape to release the stress that the slow ride was generating, I offered him one of my red bananas....
It's 8:10 and there in the horizon there is a white overpass, but quite far and very slowly nearing...
My backup plan is the only day train at 10:45, in the worst of the cases...but at this precise moment we were in the middle of nowhere!!
It's 8:30 when we arrived on the side of a main three lanes motorway, very few vehicles passing but he grabs my backpack and crosses the road to stand by a sign, starting to raise his hand on coming cars!
I thought the bus was my option, but I it wasn't, hitchhiking had been decided somehow and so it was...
I paid the old man, that stated 10000 kyats (9 euros circa) as fare for the service, but that was pretty happy to count the 4000 and something else I gave him, he crossed the road and left to get back to town...(in internet, after, I calculated that we had done 15 km!!)
I was there standing on the first lane as there are not guardrails here anyway, and I was alone with my index up on the few cars coming my direction, I selfied the moment and not even 3 minutes later I was already in the brand new Toyota gt-four caldina of a young family of five!
The only embarassing note of the trip, but maybe for them, it's been when the 1ish year old daughter struggled with her number two in the middle of the drive, but the journey was smooth nonetheless, despite the A/C was extremely low and none of us could speak a language that any other being in the car (we were 3 adults and 3 kids!) could understand (sadly)...at the end the only words exchanged were: "Yangon", "mingalabar", "toilet", "where go", during the three hours that delivered me in Yangon before lunchtime!!
Hitchhiking seems quiet easy here in Myanmar, and even if I heard that payments are required, I was not allowed to pay; locals tend to help us foreigners, even if the government forbids homestays, and they are a little concerned to be seen too close to us, they would do their best..and today I got proof.

my philosophical post 3...100 days

It’s just been 100 days I am into this trip, one hundred days away from my nephew and a hundred days (more) trying to convince myself that things come for a reason and that everything goes the way it has to go!

It’s difficult to control your mind, it’s hard to stop thinking of something if you tell your mind not to think of that something!!

Try, sit quiet for few minutes: don’t think of the word ANTS!...see what happens….

One hundred days as the days I spent in my African journey, which I was just in the middle of, 3 years ago…and nothing has been the same since then when I quit my trip let’s say for… homesickness!!

Life, like the sea, has her big waves, her calm times as well as her tides and her troubled moments…and since Africa I can say I have seen most of them in some ways..

I still cannot find myself since then, it’s hard to challenge yourself into changes in life…

Our mind is weak, very fragile, easily corruptible, we believe we are in charge of it, but are we really? How come we get stuck at a certain points? How come we don’t get the answers to our questions?

I wonder if it is, maybe, that we formulate wrongly the questions?... maybe it is the perspective in which we see things and question ourselves?

I am forcing myself to learn that is the time that will tell, but is it forcing right itself? Changing is not the answer, adapting could be!

Silence is being my solution, able, maybe, to say and express more meaningfully things?

I hope one day to be able to really forgive myself, allowing my fragile mind to forget and accept..

PS. I chose the word ANTS because since few days they are everywhere and I feel them everywhere on my body… and they bothered me writing this post too, coming out of the keyboard!!

the police station room

Yes I did, I spent a night in a police station room….at Thazi train station..

On my way south and back to Yangon to catch my flight on Saturday, my only choice is train that is the slowest and least comfortable way to do it, but at this precise time of the year, in the middle of their traditional new year celebration, the only one reliable and happening!!!

I didn’t do anything wrong actually I just joked with a policeman getting off my train saying that I was going to sleep there with them at the station and he took me seriously showing me right away the room they use for resting/changing..

As I am always seeking new experiences I actually grabbed this chance right there, I have slept in train stations before but never in a private room!! Excited of the very scruffy room and basic foldable wooden bed I accepted the courtesy as a great favour.

On the wall some words in burmese characters, a whiteboard with toothpaste and toothbrushes in the space for black markers, a dirty mirror, the fan on the roof that could only be activated by sticking a small square ruler in the switch, a super tiny mouse wondering around the room and, as everywhere in a Myanmar home, a shelf/window with Buddha for praying, in this case little untidy and dusty..

I couldn’t believe of the opportunity I was being given as weird as it sounds, even though they seemed as enthusiastic themselves; they even approached a shy communication with the only word they knew in italian: Balotelli!! A football player..

On the other side though I felt privileged considering that all the local people were just sleeping lying on mats on the ground next to the platforms surrounded by hungry goats and a dozen of fearful stray dogs!

I got woken up at 5:40, that here is a good 20 minutes past sunrise, by one of the policemen reminding me that my train was in 3 hours!!

I walked into town, where hundreads of, smileless and burgundy colour dressed, barefoot monks were collecting their alms, to look for some grapes (I am in my second day of grape detox!).