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!).