HITCHHIKING diaries - London/Naples

Here I go, on foot, first across the Westminster bridge, and then, after passing in front of the South-bank center, there I go already advancing along a narrow lane following just on the side of the Thames, this is, on the go eventually I come to pass under the Blackfriars bridge, and under the Southwark bridge, the London bridge, the Tower Bridge, and then, as I get to the Queen Elizabeth one I turn left and here I’m, presently walking by the A282 motorway in Dartford, a motorway also called the London Orbital, and thus, it is here, at some petrol station, that actually I start hitchhiking, I mean, I do not stay on the side of the road showing my thumb, I just approach the people moving between the cars and the petrol pumps asking if they are going south, I mean, between here and Dover it is only sixty miles, so, in a while I’m already inside some Mercedes Benz being driven by some polish guy, actually accompanied my his cousin, on the side seat, and me on the back, yeah. This is, actually, they are driving all the way to Warsaw, from here, I get o know, and well, it happens that on the way they would actually show me the kind of English music they like, and so, on the stereo they would play things like Massive Attack, Prodigy, Joy Division, Happy Mondays, Chemical Brothers, stuff like that, say, music I used to listen in my teens, and so, in a while we start a talk about Bristol and the origins of trip-hop, and, at some point I actually decide to say, “I read somewhere that Tricky, one of the vocalists of Maxive Atack, didn’t have a father and his mother committed suicide when he was still a child”; “Yes mate, that’s wicked story, they say that his father actually left the family before he was born and his mother, Maxine Quaye, committed suicide when he was only four… so he named his solo album - Maxinquaye - and plus, I have heard that once he has said that despite he hardly knew her, sometimes, he actually feels like she's speaking through him with his words...” And thus, on the going, as we actually began to outstrip a very long truck apparently transporting some kind of beauty products, for the face, for the hands, for the feet, by now we actually start listening the first seconds of “overcome”, that that is actually the first track of the “Maxinquaye” album, and so, there we go, slowly outstripping the so said truck while listening this percussion sample like a train in slow motion, some kind of mellow-dramatic flute sound, and then, the voice of Martina Topley-Bird, actually whispering this words, “For one for someone… for he, for she… for one for someone… for him, for me…” And so, after a couple of hours I’m already getting out of the ferry boat in Calais, France, but, instead of going in the direction of the city, I walk by the sea, this is, by the south banks of the English Channel. I go through some unpaved roads, and then, just a path, at the top of the hill, by the sea, and so, at some point, I actually start to hear some kind of noise like cans tinkling, something like that… and then, down there, say, between some big boulders, I eventually come to sight a few awnings shaking with the wind, and also, some silhouettes moving around it, therefore, there I go, walking stealthily, already moving in the direction of that makeshift constructions, and, well, as I’m actually getting closer and closer to it, I’m already hearing some people talking, Arab and African languages… it looks, and then, as I reach the place, I eventually come to join a small group of people around a bonfire,  say, some Somali guys even offer me what they call “Lizard drops tea!”, and then, as they watch me, a couple of Iraqis are already talking to me in Turkish thinking that I’m perhaps a Turkman, and also some Morocco guys are actually talking to me in Spanish and French, thinking that I’m perhaps Spaniard or Francophone, but no, “I’m not Turk, I’m not French, I’m not Spanish...” I say, “I’m not even European, nor American, nor Asian, actually I’m coming from the Caribbeans… you guys know where that is?”, and well, as I say this, accordingly, I instantly show them my passport from Puerto Rico, and then, my other passports from Dominica, Guadalupe, Martinique… this is, in a while I start to distribute passports around, and as I do it, some of these guys even want to pay me for it, while others, want to exchange some of them for certain goods, but, “No, no!” I say “It’s all free, you can choose your favorite ones, I mean, choose your favorite identity, take whichever is more suitable for you…” I say, and then, eventually, a guy from Afghanistan dressed as Elvis Presley come to me offering me some kind of spirit he calls “raki-raki”, and thus, as we drink, there we go on a conversation about old rock n’ roll artists, quoting American icons like John Lee Hooker, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and British groups like The Animals, The Sex Pistols, etc… and then, he also informs me about a certain Ahmad Zahir… apparently, a rock n’ roll star from his country, and so, as it goes, in this terms we would continue through the night, listening to songs from their mobile phones, talking bullshit about the modern world, drinking some more raki, and then, staring at the fire and staring at the lights of the ships passing by down there, in intervals, and so… what would happen after I don’t exactly remember. This is, I just remember waking up next morning inside this cabin, curled up in a corner, around me some niggas stretched on bare mattresses, smoking big cigarettes, staring at the broken ceiling up our heads, and well, on the course of the moment, one of them would say “les tsigane ont volé tes vêtements - the gypsies stole your clothes!”; and as he says it, actually this comment provokes some giggles on the other guys around. But, “I’m Ok” I say as I stand up, semi-naked, and then, already coming out of this hut, going down the slope, running, eventually I would throw myself into the freezing waters of this arm of sea they call “La Manche''. And so, after coming out of the water, I actually manage to gather some clothes, I even get some sort of suitcase, certainly an abandonment from the many refugees that dwell around this area, and in the meanwhile, there I go, into the middle of the road, hitchhiking again… this is, on the going I take rides with silent people, some of them actually asking me some sort of questions, some talking a bit about themselves, and so, as it occurs, we actually get into conversations about the differences between UK and French politics, conversations about french philosophers like Rousseau, Michel Foucault, Voltaire, and even, Jean Paul Sartre…  conversations about the purpose of roaming… conversations about the problems of the ex-colonies of France in Africa, etc... and, further, about two-three days after, I’m actually already reaching the southern part of the country, this is, the Bermuda triangle where France, Switzerland and Italy are getting together, and so, coming back to the present now, it’s really morning and here I am, standing at some crossroad, somewhere at the western section of the Alp mountains… this is, after hours of bouncing around without noticing any vehicle coming by, at some point, finally, I envision a very small sort of car actually coming by, and so, as it gets closer and closer, I can already apprehend that it’s one of these things you can drive with a motorbike license, say, a very small sort of car, really. And accordingly, as it actualy passes on my side, I can already see the head of the driver appearing out of the window, hairspray overflowing and bulging eyes behind fat glasses. This is, as the driver makes some kind of signal with her chin, there I go, running to the side of this jalopy, and then, as I open the door, and seat on her side, my left leg kinda touches her right leg, but she doesn't move it away… and then, as we take off, she’s already asking me custom questions like “What am I doing here / Which is my destination / Where am I from”. And to all this, I simply say that “it doesn't matter / n'importe où / Ich will überall hin / voglio andare ovunque… I want to go anywhere” and then, well, while trying to explain more properly my destination, there are some confusions with the meaning of the words I’m actually using and the meanings of the words she’s saying, and so, on the going, we wonder which would be the best language for us to speak in order to understand each other, so, well, as we keep going, quickly we come to understand that both of us are multilingual, yet, lost in translation. And momentarily, as she’s actually looking from the road to me and from me to the road, say, studying my face, I’m actually looking at the various types of teddies, cats and monkeys actually hanged all around here at the cockpit, this is, teddies swinging with the movement of the car, and plus, as it goes, the auto-radio is actually reverberating songs of caressing rhythms and light-romantic melodies, this is, just like that, “I’m actually a Russian” she eventually says, “I mean, my great-grandfather belonged to the Tsar but with the taking of the Bolsheviks he parted to the exile somewhere in what is now known as Bielorussia, but… by the way, do you know the meaning of the therm Belarus?”, “No” I say, “so, let-me explain… the name can be literally described as White Ruthenia or Baltic Ruthenia… this is, in Balto-Slavic culture, white designates north, so, the name "White Rus” originally referred to the northernmost settlements of the Kyivan Rus' by the shores of White Sea, which is a historical region of the medieval Novgorod Land, and… after the Novgorod Republic left the Rus' confederation, the north eastern lands of the modern Republic of Belarus became the northernmost ones and were called Ruthenia Alba in Latin… but, another theory suggests that the old Rus' lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as White Rus…  but, do you know about the Tatars?”, “I have heard about them,'' I say. “Well, the Tatars are an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire, a long time ago, when the Mongols invaded Russia… the largest group amongst the Tatars were the Volga Tatars, native to the Volga-Ural regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, who for this reason are often also known as "Tatars" in Russian… and so, my grandmother was a Tatar, from the Crimean peninsula. But, do you know about Crimea?” she now asks, as we go through this zigzagging road surrounded by vivacious green forests on the edge of abrupt mountains, white at the summits, “hum, yes, I have heard about it”, I say. “OK… I see, you have heard about it, but, probably, you don't know what it is exactly?” she says, and then, as I say nothing, there she goes, “so, let me explain, the Crimea is actually a peninsula on the northern shores of the Black Sea, this is, almost entirely surrounded by this sea and to a smaller extent, by the Azov Sea and the Isthmus of Perekop which connects the peninsula to the Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine… I mean, Greeks colonized its southern fringe and called it Tauris, later romanized Taurica, and so, some cities became trading colonies of Genoa, until that, it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. And so, eventually, throughout the times Crimea was occupied by a changing cast of Eurasian nomads… this is, during the fourteenth century, it became part of the Golden Horde; and then, the Crimean Khanate emerged as a successor state. In the 15th century, the Khanate became a dependency of the Ottoman Empire, so, lands controlled by Russia and Poland-Lithuania were often the target of slave raids during this period... and then, by the end of XVIII century, the Russian Empire actually annexed Crimea after an earlier war with Turkey… and later, on the years to come, this piece of land would get downgraded to an oblast… thus, as a result of alleged collaboration with the Germans, all Crimean Tatars would actually be deported by the Soviet regime and eventually, the peninsula was then resettled with other peoples… this is how my grandmother and grandfather came to live in Turkey, but my mother and father would ventually meet somewhere on the Balkans, and me, well me, they say that I was actually born in Saint Petersburg, but then, we moved to Ukraine, and Poland and Czech republic, and later... I alone would eventually come to German and Switzerland by myself, this is, initially I worked in Zurich as a house cleaner, cleaning houses of working class people… say, merchants, teachers, businessman, landowners, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, etc... then, I moved to Bern, and then to Geneva, where I actually learned the French language and started to study the Ayurveda medicine… this is, then, I even went to do a small extra course in India during some months, and later, when I came back from India I actually traveled a bit across south Europe… Italy in particular, and well, it happened that I, in fact, would end up marrying a guy in Sicily, but the marriage didn’t last… so, here I came back, into this neutral country let’s say… this is, first I installed myself in a small village really in the middle of the frozen mountains, down there, a place where I still have a house, this is, yes, the place I’m actually trying to reach now…”. And so, as she say these things, she actually begins to mess up with the radio, say, changing station after station, cutting the talking, apparently looking for her thing, and accordingly, in the meanwhile, the stereo actually starts playing some sort of minimalist pop music, the Kraftwek type of thing, this while the car is actully going down, slowly, squeaking, because she’s actually braking too much… and thus, I even advise her to break with the motor instead, not just press the brakes continually, coz if she keeps doing this, the disks that are already hot, will eventually get even more hot and then… she just continues her speech about herself, this is, “So, initially I worked as a therapist but also as a homeopath and a massagist in the small villages across the Alps… but then, in bigger cities as well, I mean, my work is peripatetic, I mean, I came to do my job in cities like Munich, Grenoble, Nice, Turin, Milan, and Vienna, yes, I went many times in Vienna coz I had a very special client there…”; and so, after being listening to all this talking, at some point, it’s my time to ask, “but…” I say, “what kind of therapies were or are you doing after all?”; “well, mainly Ayurveda” she instantly says “but also Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Apitherapy, Telekinesis, etc… do you know about it?”; she actualy asks, and I, “Well, a bit, I have heard about Ayurveda, they say that it is the oldest medicine, isn’t it?”, “Yes, we can put it in that therms, but, we should not forget Chinese medicine, African wizardry and also the Siberian purification cults, they are also very old…but OK, let’s start with Ayurveda, do you know what that actually means? “No” I say “So, the therm “Ayurveda” is composed of two words, “Ayus”, that means "life" or "longevity", and “Veda”, that means "knowledge", so here we go, the therm means something like knowledge of longevity or knowledge of life and longevity, simple isn’t it?” and so, as she says this, I just nod my head, this while actually looking out of the window, in fact, watching the big cliffs passing by, still descending, and in the meanwhile, it’s already smelling like charred pork, this because she keeps breaking, even so, she continues her conversation about Ayur... “According to Ayurveda” she says, “the human body is composed of tissues, or dhatus, waste, or malas, and humoral biomaterials, this is, the doshas… so, the seven dhatus are chyle (rasa), blood (rakta), muscles (māmsa), fat (meda), bone (asthi), marrow (majja), and semen (shukra) and, like other medicines of the classical antiquity, the treatises of Ayurveda divide bodily substances into five classical elements, this is,  earth, water, fire, air and ether… and there are also twenty gunas, this is, twenty qualities or characteristics, which are considered to be inherent in all matters… these are organized in ten pairs: heavy/light, cold/hot, unctuous/dry, dull/sharp, stable/mobile, soft/hard, non-slimy/slimy, smooth/coarse, minute/gross, and viscous/liquid… and the three postulated elemental bodily humors, the so called doshas are, Vata, this is, air, which also we can equate with the nervous system, Pitta, this is, bile, fire, which also we can equate with enzymes, and Kapha, phlegm, or earth witch also can be equated with mucus… and, each dosha has particular attributes and roles within the body and mind; the natural predominance of one or more doshas thus explains a person's physical constitution (prakriti) and personality… So, Ayurvedic tradition holds that imbalance among the bodily and mental doshas is a major etiologic component of disease… and each human possesses a unique combination of the doshas which define this person's temperament and characteristics and so, we, practitioners of Ayurveda, we must determine an individual's bodily and mental dosha makeup, in order to predispose one to particular diseases… for example, a person who is thin, shy, excitable, or has a pronounced Adam's apple and enjoys the esoteric knowledge is likely to be vata prakriti and therefore more susceptible to conditions such as flatulence, stuttering, and rheumatism… Deranged vata can also be associated with certain mental disorders due to excited or excess vayu, gas, although the Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita also attributes "insanity” to cold food and possession by the ghost of a sinful Brahman…”: “But,” I say “what kind of things do you do to your patients, I still don’t understand…”; “Well, first I have to understand their personality, I have to become a friend, and just then, I may be in the position of comprehend what is missing, what is being overused and where the scar may be… and so, my mission is to liberate this scar from their body and conscience… so, to some I may recommend certain fiscal exercises and a certain diet, and to others I may go into some kind of conversations about their inner self, about love, this is, I try to unveil what is missing in their relationships, and while talking about these things I may apply ointments, induce hypnosis etc… Well, for exemple, if you are too much Vata I will recommend you earth activities, something that would put your feet on the earth, like gardening, for example. And then, if you are too much “Pitta” you should eat foods that are bitter, sweet, and astringent can help a great deal in pacifying the “Pitta” in you. Otherwise, “Kapha” excess tends to surface in the form of hoarding, becoming too attached to people, avoiding any change and becoming inactive, and for a kapha dosha, sleep in excess is a common problem… plus higher blood sugars or cholesterol, so, in order to balance it, you should go for long walks, jogging, biking, rowing, aerobic classes, or dancing, or just go traveling…” she says, and then, as we actually stop on the verge of a ravine, it can be seen, a huge waterfall on the other side of this earthly balcony… the water falling from the top of the mountains like coming from the sky, and, this is, as it descends, some drops of it are even coming by here, say, touching our face... and in the meanwhile, as we stay here, “my house is over there” she would eventually say, actually pointing somewhere on the sides of that waterfall, and then, as we go down, everything would get blur, this is, as I remember about it now, I’m already going through the suburbs of Milan, showing my thumb again. Thus, on the going, I would eventually get a ride with this mustached man actually talking about Italian cinema from the fifties, this is, he talks about movies like La Strada; Le notti di Cabiria; Umberto D; I Vitellone; La contessa Scalza; I soliti ignoti: Viaggio in Italia; Otello; Le notti bianche; Miracolo a Milano; Grisbi; Senso; Lo sceicco bianco; Stromboli; Il Bidone; Il Grido; Bellissima; Don Camillo; La grande guerra; Ulisse; Francesco - giullare di Dio; Europa’ 51; Il generale Della Rovere; Timbuktu; Luci del varietà; Fanfan la Tulipe; Stazione Termini; Le Amiche; Cronaca di un amore; Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone; Totò, Peppino e la... malafemmina; Un Americano a Roma; Miseria e nobiltà; L'oro di Napoli; La signora senza camelie; I Vampiri; Guardie e ladri; Pane, amore e fantasia; Caltiki il mostro immortale; La banda degli onesti; Estate violenta; La Paura; Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei; Il Vedovo; L'amore in città; Il ferroviere; Un maledetto imbroglio; Pane, amore e…; Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti; and finally “I vinti” in english “The Vanquished”, a Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie that consists as he says “of three separate stories in three different countries, all with the common theme of youths who commit murders. And so, in the French story, set in Paris, two teenagers decide to murder their friend, Pierre, who is always boasting about how much money he has. And so, their plan is for a group of boys and girls, including Pierre, to go to a ruined château outside Paris where there is an allegedly buried treasure. Thus, at some point… finding Pierre alone, they shoot him with a pistol they have acquired, and, he gets wounded but not dead, and so, they flee off home. The father of the boy who fired the gun convinces him to turn himself in to the police. In the Italian story, Claudio, the only child of wealthy parents,  is in a gang smuggling American cigarettes. And, when the police raids an operation, he shoots one dead and flees alone. Falling in the dark, then, he injures himself badly, even so, he makes it to the house of his girlfriend, which drives him to a hospital. And then, staggering off home, his parents find him dead on his bed. And in the English story, a crime reporter of a daily newspaper takes a telephone call from Aubrey, a young man who says he has found the body of a woman on the heath and wants payment for his story. The newspaper alerts the police, who locate and remove the body. Then they print Aubrey's account on the front page, with his photograph, and pay him. In search of further fame, Aubrey then confesses that he was the murderer but is confident that there is not enough evidence to convict him, but there are some mistakes in the middle and he ends up sentenced to death. Then, from Parma to Florence, I would get a ride with this man driving an old Fiat Uno, this is, actually passing the tongue around his lips all the time, saying nothing special. Then, from Florence to Roma, I would get a ride with this lady that works for the masonry, she says. And then, from Rome to Naples, I would eventually get a ride with this truck actually transporting some kind of chemical products, and so, as we advance, we would talk about the Camorra, say, the criminal organization and society originating in the region of Campania. Thid is, by now my driver is actually reveling to me, “the origins of the Camorra are unclear… but, this word, “Camorra” is likely to be a blend, of "capo" (boss) and a Neapolitan street game, the "morra", a hand game that dates back thousands of years to ancient Roman and Greek times…”; “hum, interesting, can you tell me more about it?” I ask. “hum, yes, well, I wanted to tell you... I mean, in this game each player actually reveals their hand simultaneously, extending any number of fingers, this while calling out a number… and so, any player who successfully guesses the total number of fingers revealed by all players combined scores a point….”, he says, and then we actually start to try it, making some figures with the hands, while already approaching the Campania’s capital. 

HITCHHIKING diaries - Athens/Berlin

I am leaving Athens now, going across Nikaia and Keratsini, predominantly residential and working-class neighborhoods laying on the Western part of the city, then reaching Perama, an industrial suburb already by the Sardonic Gulf, say, a major hub for ship repairs, dry-docking, and shipbuilding, housing significant shipyard infrastructures, just in front of the Salamina island, accordingly, the hometown of the Ajax, a mythological hero that died by suicide after losing a contest for Achilles' armor to Odysseus, I got to know. And so, in the meanwhile, after leaving the coastal area, there I go, already advancing along the Schistou Skaramagka avenue, a powdery avenue just on the side of the Schisto Cemetery, and further, still walking, going around the Elefsina Gulf until reaching Ergatikes Katikies where is a main crossroad with roads going west in the direction of the Peloponnese peninsula, roads going east in the direction of the city center, and roads heading north, in the direction of Lâmia and Ioannina. Thus, after being for while showing up my thumb on this crossroad, I would eventually get a ride with some smiley middle-aged man driving an old pickup that along the way would tell about all the things the Europeans stole from the Greeks in the fields of Philosophy, Logic, Arts, and even Science and Mathematics, “with names like Pythagoras, and Hippocrates, that made foundational contributions to what is now physics, geometry, and medicine…” he says. And “yes…” I reply “but... actually, I always wondered if the word hypocritical is somehow related with that Hippocrates guy… and why is that related…”; “Well, in fact, the word hypocritical is not related with Hippocrates…” he says, “Hypocrite, the word that indicates a person who pretends to have virtues or principles, actually derives from the Ancient Greek word hupokrites, which means "an actor" or "stage player", while the name Hippocrates is a compound of híppos that means ‘horse’, plus krátos that means ‘power’, and it literally means ‘horse power’ or ‘master of horses’” he says. And then, still talking about some of the pitfalls of the Greek language, we would continue following along the E962 national road until reaching Tebas, where we would turn left, then advancing on the side of the Gulf of Corinth, eventually reaching Missolonghi, the capital of the Aetolia-Acarnania regional unit, and the seat of the municipality of Iera Polis Mesolongiou, “a city that is known as the site of a dramatic siege during the Greek War of Independence, which resulted in the death of poet Lord Byron…” my driver says. And then, continuing to advance along the Gulf of Patras, we would eventually pass Aitoliko, Kefalovrisos, the Ozeros and Amvrakia lakes, and then reaching Aktion or Aktio, a peninsula on the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, “and the site of an ancient town of the same name… most known for the Battle of Actium, in which Octavian gained his celebrated victory over Antony and Cleopatra…”, our driver says. And then continuing following along the Ionian coast, passing small towns like Nicópolis, Kanali, Kato Riza, Valanidorrachi, Parga, Arillas, Perdika and Plataria, already by the Gulf of Igoumenitsa, where eventually my driver would drop me. And so, after visiting Igoumenitsa, I would this time get a ride with a retired police man actually wearing a Marseillaise straw hat on his head, a man that eventually would take me into Albanian lands. And so, while we would advance along the Labëria province, my driver would actually talk about the Albanian mafia, saying that, “the Albanian criminal organizations are the most prevalent foreign groups in Greece and are reported to dominate specific illicit markets, such as the retail distribution of heroin, the importation of illegal small arms, and a significant portion of human and drug trafficking…” and so, as I listen to this, I wonder why he comes to do tourism on this lands. Anyway, I do not make him questions, and so, in silence, we would pass cities like Sarandë, Himara, Vlorë, Fier, Lushnjë and Kavajë, eventually reaching Durrês, where the bastard would drop me. And, already leaving Durrês, immediately I would get a ride with some very old Mercedes Benz being driven by a fat round faced man that actually would take me along the coast while talking about his staying in German and Switzerland, “Well, in German...”, he says now “I worked in many different kind of factories, like, car factories, sausage factory etc… and then in Switzerland, well, in Switzerland I would not get a proper work... say, I would work as a mobster there… do you know what is that, by any instance?”; “Yes I do know, but, tell me more about that…” I would say. And then, continually talking about his mafia activity in Switzerland, we would eventually reach Shkodër, historically known as Scodra or Scutari, actually the fourth-most-populous city of Albania, I get to know, a city that sprawls across the Plain of Mbishkodra between the southern part of Lake Skadar and the foothills of the Albanian Alps. And so, following on foot, I would walk around fifty kilometers on the side of the so said lake, on the way contemplating a lush green landscape composed of lily-pad-strewn wetlands, white willows, various quercus, holm oaks, plus what they call juniperus oxycedrus and Paliurus spina-christi. And so, having reached the northernmost point of the lake, I would pass through Virpazar, a village actually founded by the Ottomans, visit the Besac and Lesendro Fortresses, and then make my way toward the Adriatic sea, again. And so, once reached the shore, here I go, now being taken by some tourist agent named Lazar, a man that actually start by telling me about the ottoman presence in the Montenegrin territory, then stating that “around thirty thousand Turkish citizens own or hold shares in over three thousand companies in Montenegro, particularly in fields like construction, tourism, real estate, and banking…” he says, and then, continually speaking about the present relationship between this country and Turkey, we would eventually reach Kotor, a city actually surrounded by large fortifications that I go to visit, and so, according, about this fortifications I would get to know that, the top of the St. John mountain just on the back of the city, is actually called San Giovanni in Montenegrin, and it was already fortified during Illyrian times, say, in the sixth century the Byzantine emperor Justinian I reconstructed the fortress and then, eventually… in the fifteenth century the then independent Republic of Cattaro succumbed to Venetian rule… and so, as part of Albanian Veneta, the fortifications received their current structure… plus adding that, during this time there were two Ottoman sieges, both failed... and then, in the eighteenth century, eventually, the fortifications would pass to the Habsburg monarchy with the Treaty of Campo Formio, and already in the beginning of the nineteenth century, according to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, Kotor would be assigned as a French Empire's client state by the Treaty of Pressburg, but occupied by Russian troops during some years and later incorporated into the French Empire's Illyrian Provinces. But, the fortifications, then named Cattaro, were actually attacked by a British naval force, and after a ten-day siege, the French garrison had no alternative and surrendered… then later, with the Congress of Vienna, Kotor was returned to the Austrian Empire, but, after their defeat in World War I, the Austrians would eventually leave, and the fortress was no longer manned, that’s what I got to know just before leaving the city. Then continuing my journey,  going around the city’s bay, a bay also called Boka kotorska, or Bocche di Cattaro, but locally known simply as Boka. And so, after crossing from Lepetani to Kamenari (by ferry), I would come back to the Adriatic coast, eventually entering into Croatian lands, this is, soon reaching Dubrovnik, a city that served as the primary filming location for King's Landing, the capital city in HBO's Game of Thrones, a thing that has turned Dubrovnik into a saturated tourist destination. Therefore, already leaving it, there I go, again by the Adriatic coast, eventually passing Lozica, Mokošica, Zaton, and Orašac, a town n front of the Elaphites archipelago, and then, after passing Majkovi, Slano and Doli, eventually going through the twenty kilometers of Bosnian coast, soon reaching the Croatian coast again. And so, continuing along the Adriatic aka Dalmatian coast line, actually being taken by some mustached guy driving an old Yugo Florida (a brand that apparently stopped being produced about twenty years ago), we would follow actually talking about cars that were produced in the ex-Yugoslavia times, and while talking about this we would actually pass Komarma, Blace, Ploče, Gradac and Baška Voda,  just in front of the of Brač and Hvar islands, and then, while talking about Tito’s time, relating it with the current times of Croatian inside the Euro-zone, we would pass Split, Šibenik, etc… then already advancing in front of the  Zadar Archipelago, actually a collection of over three hundred islands, islets, and reefs, “being the bigger ones…” my guide says, “Dugi Otok, Ugljan, Pašman, Iž, and Premuda… a premier destination for scuba diving and sailing… it features unique underwater cave systems that they call ‘the Cathedral’, and the shipwreck of the Austro-Hungarian ship Szent István, that was the last of four Tegetthoff-class dreadnought, battle ships built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy…” he says. And so, then, while explicating what kind of ship is actually a dreadnought, we would pass Starigrad, Prizna, Senj, Novi Vinodolski, Kastav, and then there we go, already entering the Pula peninsula, where my host would drop me… and so, after some wandering, I would eventually cross into Slovenian lands actually aboard a small tractor being driven by an old man speaking a mix of Italian and the Slovenian language, a dialect that I can't really understand, and so, as we advance, he keeps smiling and pointing to places on the side of the road, and then, as he stops in one of this places, I would get a new ride now with a brand new BMW actually being driven by some German guy that, accordingly, would take me across all the region of the Alp mountains of Slovenia and Austria… and well, while going along huge slopes and ravines, in between the mountains, we would actually listen to some experimental music by classical-contemporary German composers like: Helmut Lachenmann; Wolfgang Rihm; Enno Poppe; Jörg Widmann; Matthias Pintscher; Isabel Mundry; Carola Bauckholt; Manfred Trojahn; Alexander Schubert; York Höller; Karlheinz Stockhausen etc… And then, when already approaching the Austria-Czech Republic border, I would eventually relate the music we have been listening with the krautrock movement from the seventies, and as it goes, he would say “yes, actually Stockhausen was one of the mentors of Holger Czukay, the bass player/sound engineer from the krautrock band Can. And so, in the meanwhile, while actually going across all Czeck republic, we would actually listen a bunch of krautrock bands like Neu!, Faust, Gong, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, Amon Düül and then... when already reaching the vicinity of Berlin, we would eventually pass by the Müggelsee, the largest of the Berlin lakes, actually situated on the Treptow-Köpenick district, and then, after passing Neukölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, where one part of the infamous Berlin wall is still up, we actually go across the spree talking about  Damo Suzuki, the former vocalist of the seminal krautrock band Can.

HITHHIKING diaries - Astoria/Eureka

 I'm leaving Astoria now, walking along the New Young’s Bay Bridge, feeling the shaking each time a lorry passes by, and also, continually being honked, coz, apparently, it's forbidden to walk on this bridge, anyway, I do not care about that, I just keep advancing by the guardrail, staring at the sky, staring at my feet, staring at the flow down there, some barges actually moving through, mainly downstream, approaching the outflow of the Columbia river, a river actually coming from the northern Canadien lands, I got to know... and then, once a I make it to Warrenton, just on the other side of this bay, I keep moving in the direction of the sea, actually walking along the so-called Delaura Beach road, a road surrounded by some green pines, some salal, some huckleberries, and then, once I make it to the beach, there I go, washing my feet, collecting some stones, some shells, and, as it goes, once I hit the Sunset Beach State Recreation Site, I'm actually coming back to the main road again, say, the US101 highway, and thus, as I keep walking by its main course, there I go, showing my thumb, or, just waving it around without really looking back, and so, in this fashion I walk for a while, eventually getting a ride with some surf guy that actually ends up dropping me just by the entrance of the Cannon Beach town, a touristic place, and then, once I pass the last Cannon beach mansions, I'm actually getting a new ride, this time in a van with some local guy that, accordingly, takes me Manzanita, a small town located on the northern shores of the Nehalem Bay... and so, eventually, I get lost while following the trails around this bay, and then, when I manage to come back to the main road, it's already night, and so, I'm not hitchhiking now, say, I'm just walking by the road, making some figures from time to time, like, flapping wings, wriggling, or just, looking up at the stars... wondering if that is Orion, or Taurus, the Canis Major, or the Canis Minor... and then, I don’t know how much time after, deep in the night, there's actually a big flashing on my back, and so, in the meanwhile, as the thing passes by on my side, even honking several times, then it comes to a stop a bit further. And, well, as it stops, the passenger door is promptly opened, as if automatically, and, accordingly, there I go, already approaching the thing, but, with no rush, just walking on my rhythm, and so, when I'm in fact reaching the front cabin of the big rig, “hellow hellow”, I'm already hearing, even before I see anything, this because the voice is coming from up, not from the door level, and so, just then, when I actually turn my head left and up, I'm actually spotting this character mounting up there in front of the big wheel, staring at me now, say, a man with some kind of a toad smile and muscular shoulders, now bouncing his head up and down while actually staring at me, and, “allowa-allowa, all good?”; I say, as a way to break the ice, and he, “all good... heading south yes!?; “yes-yes” I say; “south is good, but, need to know more about it... I can actually take you further if you give me the trust...”; “oh really, what you want to know?”; “simple things, like, who are you and where you really wanna go...”; “oh, my name is Shem, and, I'm not from this country, that's why I'm traveling around, say, I wanna reach the California state and then, will probably head to the desert...”; “oh, that's explicit, but, can you for example show me the content inside your backpack, you know, just for precaution... one must take care when picking strangers from the roadside nowadays...” he says, and thus, “Can I come up'”; “go for it!” he promptly answers. Therefore, after climbing up, straight away I open the top of my backpack and invite him to look inside... but, instead, “just dump the stuff here... if it's ok for you...!” he says, while actually waving at the free seat on his side, and I, well, without thinking too much, there I go, already turning the big bag upside down, pulling a handful of things out, mainly clothes, and, as the stuff falls on the seat, he actually shows me some kind of tricky smile that, I do not know how to interpret, even so, then, there he goes, actually rummaging through this bundle of clothes where he actually comes to find some gadgets, some stones, some shells, and well, as he's actually staring closer at some of this shells, “Can I keep some?” he asks, and, “sure thing!” I'm promptly answering, thus, after actually throwing some of those stones and shells over the dashboard by the windshield, he's already saying, “this clothes are not quite smelling good ma man, just take that back inside your backpack and all will be ok... let's go...” And so, said and done, with the vehicle's engine already rumbling, we take off. And further, after recounting a bit about some of the characters he has actually been giving ride through the times... we make some silence, say, by now he's just driving while actually playing with some kind of beaded necklace, and me, here I stay, constantly closing and opening my eyes, as I'm getting in that mood... even so, in those time intervals between the opening and closing of the eyelashes, I become aware that at this point, he's actually rummaging under his seat, picking something from there, something that in the meanwhile is already landing on my lap, and say, as some lights are actually being turned on inside this cab, now I see, this fat book with a totally black cover here standing in between my legs, and well, as I touch it, our driver is already asking me to read some passages from it, “aleatorically”, he says... and me, I, in this moment, as I'm actually looking from his face to the big book, and from the big book to the road, in the meanwhile, I even see him actually touching the holster of what may be some kind of pistol, a holster in fact standing just on the side of one of the shift levers, and well, as I look at that holster, “...choose a page and start reading a text of your choice...”, he's already saying, “but, read it well, you understand!? I want no babble...” he adds. And so, taking that holster as granted, here I'm, already opening the big book, leafing through it, and, "When any man from the Israel house...” I'm already reading, “offer a burnt offering or a sacrifice... and do not bring it to the entrance of the assembly place...” I keep reading “this same man have to be cut off from our people... and, if you are proud of your God, if you know his wills and you approve his good things as you are verbally instructed by the law... and, if you are equally persuaded that you are a guide for the blind... a light to them in the darkness... one who corrects the unreasonable, an instructor of the little ones... and having the structure of knowledge and truth in the law... to you will come the very glory of Lebanon, the juniper, the ash and the cypress...” and here, at this point, the chauffeur is already shooting that gun against the passing trees, and I, making as ignoring, I just continue the reading, “so, in order to adorn the place of your sanctuary, you will have to glorify what is under your feet...”; thus, “you see,” our driver says now, “men ought be declared righteous by works and not only by faith...'' and then, I just keep reading “in the same way, wasn't also Rahab, the harlot, declared righteous by her works... after having received with hospitality the messengers sending them off through another door... just as the breathless body is dead, faith without works is also dead... and the priest will have to return on the seventh day and see, if... the plague has spread on the walls of the house... eventually, stones have to be removed from that wall and carried out of the city, in order to be cast away into an unclean place... and Solomon should have one thousand horses and ten thousand horsemen and horsewomen... and these servants should provide everything for the king Solomon, and nothing should be missed… the offerings plus the barley and the straw for the horses... all should be brought according to their commission... and God will continue to give Solomon wisdom and understanding to a very great extent, as well as broadness of heart... just like the sand that borders by the sea...” I read, and then, after a couple of hours more reading thing like this, as we are eventually reaching the neighborhoods of Eureka, the chauffeur says “Heil heil heil Solomon! We will make a stop here, I will pay you the lunch my boy coz I very much have been enjoying your readings!” And so, once at the restaurant, the driver goes and installs himself on the bar, just side by side with other lorry drivers, and there they stay, leaning against the counter, some looking at their phones, others sharing some short stories about the road, about women, about this or that car accident, about creatures wandering through this or that highway disturbing the drivers, about this particular lorry failure, about this or that traffic inspection, and as they talk about these things, they are actually drinking big glasses of beer and then, even laughing at stupid jokes about the wives of Solomon, and well, as I hear all that, here I'm, installed at the opposite corner table, supposedly staring at some TV screen down there, the screen actually displaying a continuous shaking of flopping bars and burning dots, but then, when the waiter comes by, actually a fat woman with a fluff, and asks what I want to eat, instantly, “bring me some pudding”, I say, and well, “but which kind of pudding?” she asks; “it doesn’t matter the sort, any pudding, big If possible...”; “hum, and, any drinks?”; she asks, “no, no drinks.” I say, and well, as she actually leaves, bouncing her fat buttocks, a guy in a blue suit with a small bow on his neck is actually appearing swinging on the screen, say, swinging in front of all that dots and passing bars, and in a while, distorted images of huge brains are actually appearing around the man, and then, there he goes, already starting some kind of speech about... “Human beings have an autonomic nervous system that is actually comprised of three separate subsystems...” he says with a stupid smile, “the parasympathetic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system...” he keeps saying, now being hit by all that distorted images of bumping brains, and then continuing like this, “the enteric nervous system has been described as some kind of second brain, which communicates with the central nervous system through the parasympathetic via the vagus nerve and sympathetic nervous systems...” and then, “however, vertebrate studies show that when the vagus nerve is severed, the enteric system continues to function... and so, we now know that the enteric system is not just capable of autonomy but also influences the brain... In fact, about ninety per cent of the signals passing along the vagus nerve come not from above, but from the enteric system... and that is why many consider it as a backup brain centered in our solar plexus... this is, our gut instincts are not fantasies but real nervous signals that guide much of our lives...” and while I hear this assumptions coming from the TV set I’m also aware that there is a big mess on my back, there in the opposite corner of the salon, the truck drivers laugh and yell because of something I'm not interested to know, and so, as I turn back my attention to the big screen, it continues like this, “this, it is our vagus nerve that provides the gateway between the two parts of the autonomic systems.... thus, the vagus nerve actually acts as a bio-informational data bus that routes impulses going in two directions... and, since the vagus nerve acts as the central switchboard it should be understood that, impaired functioning on this nerve can also lead to many kind of different problems.... like, for example, some neurological diseases actually come up from that guts spreading to the brain via the vagus nerve... and” in the meanwhile, “you see, you see...” one of the truck drivers is actually shouting down there on the opposite corner, “you see, it's scientifically proven now... yes, the SHIT you may have in your bowls will produce some part of your thinking, yes-yes, think about this ladies and gents...” and so, as he actually shouts this things, a whole conversation about shit is actually coming up in the restaurant, all around. But, I just ignore it, again turning my attention to the big screen, this is, to that blinking blue guy with that peculiar bow on his neck, now saying, “actually, the autonomic nervous system is composed of two polar opposite systems that create a complementary tug-of-war which allows our body to maintain homeostasis inner-stability... this is, the sympathetic nervous system is geared to rev you up like the gas pedal in an automobile... it thrives on adrenaline and cortisol and is part of the fight-or-flight response… and, the parasympathetic nervous system is the polar opposite... this is, the vagus nerve is the command central for the function of your parasympathetic nervous system... and so, the vagus nerve reflexive responses can backfire and turn it from comrade into saboteur... therefore, that’s why the vagus nerve is known as the wandering nerve, because, it has multiple branches that diverge from two thick stems rooted in the cerebellum and brain-stem that wander to the lowest viscera of our abdomen... touching our hearts and most major organs along the way... it meanders all the way down, into the belly, spreading fibers to the tongue, pharynx, vocal chords, lungs, heart, stomach, intestines and glands that produce anti-stress enzymes and hormones like Acetylcholine, Prolactin, Vasopressin, Oxytocin... influencing digestion, metabolism and the relaxation response... so, the vagus nerve uses the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine… and if our brain cannot communicate with our diaphragm via the release of acetylcholine from the vagus nerve then you will stop breathing” and as he says that, now, at this point, the face of the little man is actually getting red, like, choking with his own assumptions. And then, he just keeps going, now stuttering a bit while saying, “Botox is a toxic substance that has the power to damage the nervous system and shut down the vagus causing death... and, it's interesting to note that... the heavy metal mercury blocks the action of acetylcholine, say, the neurotransmitter that passes the nerve impulse from the vagus nerve to the heart muscle... and, both acetylcholine and the nerve receptors in the heart muscle contain thiol proteins... and so, when mercury attaches to the thiol protein in the heart muscle receptors and in the acetylcholine, the heart muscle cannot receive the vagus nerve electrical impulse for contraction... and the result is that... mercury actually accumulates in the heart muscle and heart valves, causing damage by attaching to thiol proteins. And so, now we can say, that, the frequently observed rocking and swinging behaviors in autistic individuals may reflect a naturally occurring bio-behavioral strategy to stimulate and regulate a vagal system that is not efficiently functioning... and so, I may also say that, nowadays, people have been highly contaminated with the mercury used in dental amalgam which dentists routinely place only inches from the brain...and, say, more than three thousand tons of mercury are actually put into the atmosphere each year contaminating the entire biosphere of our planet, but the government and the people, nonsensically, seems to always worry more about CO2 emissions than about the huge amount of neurotoxic mercury actually present in our atmosphere...” he says, with a distorted mouth, and, as he actually says that, the screens turns into a disturbing reddish sky with a lot of dentures actually dangling all around, and then, some publicity about toothpaste follows. Thus, I leave it now, and instantly, there I go, through the gambling area, where all the truck drivers are actually installed now, still talking about the vagus nerve, the vagus mind, while playing on that stupid machines, and me, well, as I go through, I'm actually covering and uncovering the mouth with the palm of my hands, making this sound like the Indians used do in the westerns movies, and so, as I advance doing it, they keep tell me to shut up, but I don’t stop, I keep turning around the flipper machines doing that sounds, and, as it goes, at some point, some of them are already coming to me, trying to block my way, and, say, in order to defend myself, I even have to do some acrobatic steps, some skidding, and so, in the meanwhile, there I go, already jumping through one of the big windows, now running through the parking lot, in between the many trucks, and while I run, I'm actually being chased by a bunch of street dogs, shiny street dogs actually displaying a continuous effervescence of burning dots, and then, as I reach the shores of Arcata Bay, the bay actually standing on the northern banks of Eureka town, I just jump into these waters...

HITCHHIKING diaries - Hanoi/Singapore

I’m leaving Hanoi now, this is, as I get out of the city I began wiggling my thumb while still walking on the side of the road, and, well, on the go, several motorcycles actually come to stop by my side, and then, while already riding on these motorcycles, one after the another, until the border with Laos I would be taken and then, once on the other side, I would get some more rides with a few motorcycles more, I mean, its drivers would take me across the country until the suburbs of Vientiane, the country's capital. And thus, some days after, I’m already leaving the country, say, going across the Nong Khai bridge, a bridge that actually makes the border with Thailand, a bridge that was first called by the locals “the HIV bridge”, this when it first opened in the beginning of the nineties. And thus, once on the other side, a Chinese guy making business in Thailand would take me until close to Bangkok. And accordingly, after leaving Bangkok, I would get a ride with this small Isuzu Gemini, its driver a round-faced lady with short hair tied up, and well, as we take off, she’s already going on uttering a speech that goes more and less like this “Sometimes I feel like a turtle that is being grilled over hot charcoal…. my life seems to be that of a country girl who has spent her days escaping from a tiger, only to be eaten by a crocodile… you see, I am a prostitute, though farangs (foreigners) prefer to call women like me ‘bar girls’... I believe the term is more acceptable to westerners’ ears, but to a girl like me, it is all the same… my job means nothing to me anymore… I have long since given up any hope of happiness… I exist for the pleasure of others... You might say that the only certainty in my life is uncertainty... I couldn’t tell you how many men have bought me, not that it matters... I prefer not to remember them, this is, in Thailand we do not talk about such private matters. It is not customary to talk of things that should be forgotten… It is also of little concern to a girl of my standing... The only thing that matters is the baht that I am paid... Though, I suspect that mine is not the worst existence in the world, I must confess I wouldn’t know if it is... I know little else... You can buy me for two thousand baht and in return, I will do almost anything that is asked of me, but I won’t kiss customers, some things are just too intimate to do with a stranger, kissing is for a wife or girlfriends; sex is for Thai girls like me... You might say that my face is round, like a full moon in the sky. This is a trait I inherited from my father, who was born in Ubon Ratchathani, the second biggest province in Isan, bordering Laos and Cambodia. Ubon Ratchathani was the location for an American airbase during the Vietnam War. This may or may not have had something to do with my father becoming a soldier in his teens… And so, by the time I came along, he was already a sergeant major, responsible for the instruction of the new recruits… this is, my father was a restless young man, and, as I remember, when I was a little girl, he used to set me on a krae, a low table of bamboo, and he would tell me about how he had ended up in the province of Nakhon Ratchasima, commonly called Khorat, where he was entranced by a beautiful young girl who worked at one of the stalls in the marketplace... I have a black and white photograph of this girl, my mother, which was taken shortly after they met. Her oval face is framed by her shiny, black hair, which is parted in the center and drawn up into a perfect bun on the top of her head, like mine, now. In this foto, she were wearing a sleeveless, V-necked, polka-dot dress, and is smiling sweetly at the photographer, in a way that only lovers do. Plus, she used to boast about all the men that flirted with her... this is, she was proud of her beauty, particularly since she had to quit school in third grade because her family was poor farmers. Sadly, they saw no reason why a woman should be educated only to be married off to a man and be dependent on him for the rest of her life… I do not know what year they met, or what year they married. Little details like that have never interested me. All I know is that my brother Nop was born one year before me and my sister Nang was born one year after. Apparently we lived in rented accommodation for the first two years of my life, and that was a tiny house of which I have absolutely no recollection, although I do remember my mother pointing it out to me one day... She tried in vain to jolt my memory about the room in which I slept and where my brother and I had played and fought together. ‘Don’t you remember that room, where you slept in a hammock as a baby?’ she asked one day. She also pointed out a tamarind tree, which she said I used to cling to when I was learning to walk, but I stared at it disinterestedly; it was a stranger’s house to me, with its simple two-storey style and wooden fence. And so, ‘Sorry Mae, I don’t remember it at all,’ I would reply, and then she seemed a little disappointed… and so, after the arrival of the children, the rent got too expensive for my parents and thus, we had to move into the accommodation provided by the army, and so, we lived there with other soldiers and their families, and I think Mae must have missed the little house, though she never admitted it; it represented more than simply the first place she lived in after she married… possibly, it reminded her of a young couple in love excited about their shared future, or at least, that’s what I like to believe, considering how the future unfolded... So, the wooden town house that became my home was provided by the Thai government for its military and there was nothing distinguishing about it. It was one of hundreds that were built in small rows around the airbase where my father was stationed… each row consisted of ten columns for ten families, and each dwelling was a copy of its neighbor; two storeys with a small kitchen and bathroom at the rear and a bedroom/living area just inside the front door… Upstairs, there was another small bedroom and a tiny area reserved for meditation and worship... but, my father was the only one who used this room, and only on “wan phra”, or what you might call holidays. It had a little altar where a small Buddha sat, flanked by two vases of flowers... so, even now, I can still remember the heavy perfume of the incense sticks he burned as an offering to Buddha… and, kneeling in front of Buddha, the combined smoke of the incense and candles swirled around him, as he chanted in a language unintelligible to me. And, I remember that, I walked on my knees and sat quietly behind him in a position called wai — head bowed and hands pressed together—hoping that goodness would protect me. This is, despite the poorness, I didn’t have an unhappy childhood. We grew up surrounded by tanks and military aircraft, which were of no concern to us children, though I have pleasant memories of watching planes taking off every morning and so, the army base was a place where everyone knew everyone…. This is, the women knew each other, the children knew each other; you could say that even the dogs were familiar with each other’s tails. And so, today, what I remember, perhaps more than anything else, is the color of the earth… It was a reddish brown, and when you were riding at full speed on a bicycle, the dirt would swirl up and taint your socks… and it would contrast with the surrounding greenery and deep-blue sky. Plus, there were lots of trees and acres upon acres of green Bermuda grass. The summers were always extremely hot, and I can remember that the trees gave us shelter from the sun when it reached its highest point in the sky… and so, a little bit away, a white wall encircled the camp, shutting us out from the rest of the world. And now, as a mother, I realize the camp was perfect for children, unable to escape and always… happy when a parent was within shouting distance. This is, the army base was our world. And I had no inclination to leave it and explore what would be beyond its walls... so, yeah, you can say that I wasn’t a very adventurous child, because I did not dare to leave its confines. This was my first mistake, and one of my earliest memories was that of my mother getting me ready for my first day of school… I remember sitting on her lap as she gently braided my hair. I loved my mother, but if I had to choose which parent I was closest to as a child, I would have to say my father. Por used to let me accompany him when he cycled to the market and also when he went fishing. The two of us would sneak into a paddy field where he’d dangle a bamboo stick that had a furiously wriggling worm or a small toad hooked to the end of it. He found it more productive to leave the stick unmanned for about thirty minutes or so and then return to check on its progress. I always hoped there would be a huge fish waiting for us, but invariably it would be just a little eel or a snake-head, which was better than nothing, I guess... My father would shrug in resignation as he pulled up the homemade rod, seemingly content just to have something to bring home to my mother…. Another highlight, was the Red Cross Fair, which took place every winter, we went as a family, me holding Por’s hand, my brother upon his shoulders and Mae holding my sister. These fairs were a marvel to me, with so many different toys on sale… Looking back now, I suppose it was just a few makeshift stalls selling cheap toys, but my brother and I were practically speechless with the excitement of it all… this is, one year I fell in love with a blond-haired doll and dragged Por over to where she was on display, so he could admire her as I did… and I would beg my father to buy it for me, but he shook his head sadly and in reply he would say something like, ‘I can’t afford to buy it to you, coz if I buy it, then, I will have to buy your brother and sister a toy too, or it wouldn’t be fair, and I just can’t.’ And I remember this day clearly, because it was then that I learned that not everyone is equal. I watched other children leave the fair with their new toys, and I experienced envy, perhaps for the first time. Por hadn’t exaggerated. My parents never bought their children toys. My sister and I often collected leaves and branches to play, in which we would act out the roles of food vendor and customer. My father was an honest man, and I believe he hoped that we would make something of our lives. Unfortunately, a soldier’s lot was not a profitable one… and, I think he earned, at the most, around six hundred baht a month, which was not enough to support a family of five… and, later, he would spend half of this money on booze, and the arguments with my mother would become more and more intense until that he would disappear to not to be seen again… and so, me, my brother and my sister had to start working very prematurely in order to help my mother to support the house, and it is for this and other reasons that I end up coming to Bangkok, but now, I’m leaving it… to never come back...”. she says, and so, as she kept explaining about her teenage years, and about her experience in America and in Japan, we arrive in Phuket, where she actually has some work to do. But, I find Phuket super fake, plastic, and so, instantly, I run away from this place overcrowded with tourists, this is, I hit the road again and eventually, on the going, this time I would get a ride with this accountant man that actually would takes me to Krabi, and then from Krabi further ahead I would get several rides with a couple of minivans heading to the Satun province, a province already making border with Malaysia. And thus, once I cross the border, there I go getting some more rides with some more individuals with slanted eyes, this ones with a rounder face, a bit more chubbier than the ones on the other side of the border, from here I came, and at some point, this is, on the vicinity of Alor Setar, I would get a ride with this guy in fact wearing what people call coke bottle glasses on his face, say, a guy that in fact is assuming to be a worker of the Malaysian government, and so, while we drive southern, already advancing just on the side of the strait of Malacca, he actually would tell me about the relations between Thailand and Malaysia, this while passing cities like Kuala Kedah, Kampung Kuala Kangkong, Kampung Sala, Kota Sarang Semut, etc. And accordingly, about one hundred kilometers after, as we reach Butterworth, a city just in front of the Penang island, this is, about this island my driver would say, “...aside from the three main races, Malay, Chinese and Indians, Penang is home to significant Eurasian, Siamese and other expatriate communities...”, and well, as he keeps exposing about these expatriates communities, soon we would reach the Sultan Abdul Halim Ferry Terminal where my mate actually would follow in one of that ferries to George Town, the capital of the so refereed Penang island. And so, as I wander here, around the hardboard, I sit under an arched veranda at some coffee house actually surrounded by some oil magnates from Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar, personages that after a brief contact with me, already want to take me to one of their countries, and I, well, I just laugh at that, but then, as it goes, later, one of them would in fact give me a ride to the capital of this country, say Kuala Lumpur, and so, after the whole day wandering through the city, again, I would move in the direction of the coastline, on the way passing places like Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Klang and then Pelabuhan Klang, a port town already in front of the Strait of Malacca, and actually, after leaving the surroundings of the port, I would somehow end up at the Pantai Kelanang beach, where I would make friendship with some Chinese guys that in the following hours, would take me in their van in the direction of the Republic of Singapore, and so, after passing Port Dickson, Malacca, Muar, Batu Pahat, Johor Bahru and others, as we reach this Singa country, my driver would tell me that this name, Singpore, is actually is an Anglicization from the native Malay, which in turn derives from the Sanskrit word Siṃhapura, “siṃha” being 'lion' and “pura” meaning 'city' or 'fortress', the Chinese man – my driver, tells me as we go across the Johor–Singapore causeway, say, a bridge linking Johor Bahru in Malaysia to Woodlands in Singapore, this is, one of the busiest border crossings in the world, they say, with more than three hundred thousand road and rail travelers daily, I also get to know.

HITCHHIKING diaries - Algeciras/Marseille

I just left Algeciras, this is, I walked all around the Bay of Gibraltar, passing Playa de El Rinconcillo, Palmones, the Derichebourg industrial park, say, a complex for industrial waste treatment and vehicle decontamination, and then, already on the intersections leading to the Gibraltar peninsula, I would get a ride with this guy with blond hair, goatee and sideburns, Yan his name, actually a “man with a van” transporting goods for English expatriates living along the Andalusian coast. And so, say, as we actually advance along the A-383, here he is already presenting himself, actually saying things like this, “yes I may be an English motherfucker but, in fact, I was born in the Balkans... my mother was from there… I mean, if you wanna know, I actually spent my childhood hopping through different islands on the Aegean Sea… places like Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Naxos, and so on… and then, on my teens, I would be sent to an auntie in Italy, and then, to another relative in France, and just then I went to visit the old folks in North Yorkshire where I would spend four or five year doing some sort of schooling… that, before getting into a parade with a bunch of con hippies that would actually drive me away from Europe into Anatolian lands, I mean east Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, the Siam area… I mean, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, and then just then, from Indonesia into Australia we went… I mean, on the way we would be passing through many Indonesian islands, places like Java, Bali, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Timor and other smaller ones… and just then Australia…”, “Uouhhh what a bit journey” I would exclaim, and then, “What about Australia, how was it?”; “pretty boring actually… I mean, soon I exchanged it for New Zealand where people are more... and then, I would actually jump onto a big ship that would take me across the pacific ocean into South America, and so, in the meanwhile I would actually hit countries like Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and then… then the Caribbeans…”; “Ohu, that looks amazing, I myself I have only been in Mexico…”. And thus, while I actually talk about my experiences in Mexico and he talks about his experiences through he Caribbean islands, on the going, we would be passing cities like Manilva, Estepona, Marbella, Fuengirola, Malaga, Motril, and so, on the suburbs of Almeria, I would actually get a ride with some kind of truck actually coming from port, say, a truck with an Arab plate, and so, on the way, Amir, a Maroccan guy, would actually tell me how he had actually reached Europe, long time ago, when he was still a kid, “I mean, the first time going across the Bāb al-Maghrib, as you may have heard about it, we actually did it in a really small dinghy made of inner tubes from truck wheels… trucks like this one I’m actually driving now, but, as you may expect, it happened that the sea dragged us too much to the west and instead of landing on the Spanish coast, we actually ended up landing in south Portugal… in what they call Algarve… and thus, with some luck, we weren't pulled into the Atlantic sea… but, let’s see, as soon as we moored there, my friends quickly left to Spain, leaving me alone there, and so, in the meanwhile I would actually wonder around Tavira, Lagos, Faro, and then Lisbon, the capital, where I would remain during some time, and well, I may say that… I liked the Portuguese people, they are humbler than the Spanish, but, there aren't great job opportunities in that country, so, soon I would actually leave Portugal and go to work negro in the huge orange tree farms in south Spain, mainly located around Valencia, where we are actually going now, yes Valencia…. a city that have ferries to the famous island of Ibiza, and, well, at some point, I would also manage to get into one of that ferries going to there, but, well, I would get caught on the arrival and then, then they just sent me to some special kind of prison for illegals that turned out to be a nice house with some kind of sort of labor camps, and so, actually, it was there, in these labor camps that I got to know and make friendship with other people from the Maghreb countries, say, countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and also some sub-sahariens, say, people from Mali, Niger, Chad etc… and also, it was there, that I learned to properly speak and write Spanish, and then, some months later, when I was already integrated, they sent me back to Morocco… I mean, my mother was happy to see me again, but, my older brother… as soon as I arrived he would throw me out of the house, this because, he would say that I had become an infidel, and thus, I left again, this is, I wandered through the country and actually ended up not far from Ouarzazate, a touristic city at the doors of the desert, this is, on the side of the Barrage el Mansour Eddahbi I would work, this before taking the caravan to Merzouga, a city on the border with Algeria…” and thus, as we actually pass on the vicinities of cities like Lorca, Murcia, Alicante, Gandia and then Valencia, Amir would reveal that, “fter Merzuga, I would actually find myself in Tunis, Tunisia's capital, where I actually would hear about a new place where people could cross into European lands, the so called the Djerba peninsula... and so, there I went into some kind of dinghy again… this one due to Malta, this is, a European island at the time I had never heard about… an island where people can actually speak Arab, Italian and French, all mixed up… and so, from there I actually passed to Sicilia and instantly started working for the mafia, this is, I was a courier, say, I traveled between Sicily and another cities in south Italy a dozen times per month, cities like Napoli, Taranto, Lecce, Catanzaro, Bari, Brindisi, etc. And it happened that, at some point, I really had to escape the mafia because they actually wanted to kill me, they were making some accusations and so… I went to France, this is, it was my first time in France and… I may say that I stayed mainly between Marseille and Montpelier, but, soon got into a series of problems with some Algerian guys, the majority there, and, well… these Algerians were actually very different from the ones I had actually known in Algiers and other Algerian cities. Thus, I would actually get into pitch battles with them, and so... in one of this brawls the police came by, I was arrested, they found out that I was illegal and to Morocco I was sent again… this is, on the arrival my mother was happy again, but not my old brother… same old shit… and, in the meanwhile, I would get to know that one of my girlfriends in France was actually pregnant, and so, again, I would find a way to cross the bahar, this is, I came back to France in order to marry that french woman, so I could get the European papers, but, it happened that she didn't want to marry me, this coz her family was actually Algerian, and so, no Algerian woman should marry a Moroccan man… therefore, I left again, I mean… I went to German and to Switzerland but I couldn't adapt to that coldness, so, I decided to come back to Italy, and again, I ended up in Sicily… this is, again, I would be in problems with the mafia guys… and so, this time, I would run away in opposite direction… this is, I would go to Libya, and so, in the meanwhile… I would actually find some serious work in Tripoli, this is, I even shook hands with one of the sons of Gaddafi... and...” in the meanwhile we would already be reaching Barcelona, where I actually would get another ride, this is, this time in a Mercedes Benz, its driver, a cinephile. and so, while already advancing in the direction of the French border, we would actually begin some sort of conversation about directors like Buñuel, Pedro Almodóvar, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, Jacques Tati, Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr, etc…. and so, when he actually paraphrase Béla Tarr, I just say that “Effectively… Sátántangó is one of my all time favorites, I mean, there is something in this movie that reminds me of my childhood, I guess…” I say. “Hum OK, like what!?”; “I don’t know… what I best recall in that movie is this scene in that sort of decrepit bar or tavern, the accordionist playing, drunk people dancing and messing around, the man with the stick hitting the table non-stop, the woman with big boobs dancing with a man with a beret, dancing and rejecting him at the same time, and the little girl outside looking through the window what is happening inside...”, I say, and “yes…” he says “that's an amazing scene, very visceral, happy and sad at the same time… that scene also reminds me of another movie called The House, a French-Lithuanian production directed by Šarūnas Bartas” he says. “Yes, and now is my time to ask… what actually happens in that movie?”, “Hum, nothing great… it's just people wandering inside a house in silence, a ramshackle mansion in the middle of the woods, strange individuals wandering about, some naked, some dressed with rags, they eat, they sleep, they roam between the desolated rooms, always in strict silence...” and then, also in silence, we would keep rolling, by the sea, this is, by now already inside the French territory, and so, in this fashion we actually would pass cities like Perpignan, Narbona, Béziers, Nimes Arles… and then, already on the Marseille area, I would somehow get another ride, to say, this time with some guy with bottle-bottom glasses, a guy that, along the way, as we actually approach the city, would tell me about La Corse, the island, and so, “after a brief occupation by the Carthaginians and by the ancient Greeks, and an only slightly longer occupation by the Etruscans…” he says, “La Corse was incorporated by the Roman Republic at the end of the First Punic War, with Sardinia, actually became a province of the Roman Republic… this is, the Romans, that actually built a colony in Algerie considered Corsica as one of the most backward regions of the Roman world… so, the products that the island exported at that time were only, honey, resin and wax, and exported many slaves, not well considered because of their fierce and rebellious character…” he says, and then “moreover, it was known for its cheap wines, exported to Rome, and was used as a place of relegation, one of the most famous exiles being the Roman philosopher Seneca... and so, administratively the island was divided into Pagi, which in the Middle Ages became the Pievi, the basic administrative units of the island until the eighteenth century... then, during the diffusion of Christianity, which arrived quite early from Rome and the Tuscan harbors, Corsica was become home to many martyrs and saints, among them, the most important are Saint Devota and Saint Julia, both patrons of the island… then in the fifth century, the western half of the Roman Empire collapsed, and the island was actually invaded by the Vandals and the Ostrogoth… then, briefly recovered by the Byzantines, it soon became part of the Kingdom of the Lombard… they made it a dependency of the March of Tuscany, which used it as an outpost against the Saracens. Then, Pepin the Short, king of the Franks and Charlemagne's father, actually expelled the Lombards and nominally granted Corsica to Pope Stephen II… and then, in the first quarter of the eleventh century, Pisa and Genoa together freed the island from the threat of Arab invasion and after that, the island came under the influence of the republic of Pisa… then there was a massive immigration from Tuscany, which gave to the island its present toponymy and rendered the language spoken in the northern two-thirds of the island very close to the Tuscan dialect… this led to the traditional division of Corsica into two parts, along the main chain of mountains roughly going from Calvi to Porto-Vecchio, the eastern Banda di dentro, or Cismonte, more populated, and open to the commerce with Italy, and the western Banda di fuori, or Pomonte, almost deserted, wild and remote… then, the crushing defeat experienced by Pisa in the Battle of Meloria against Genoa had among its consequences the end of the Pisan rule and the beginning of the Genoese influence in Corsica… a popular revolution against this and the feudal lords, led by Sambucuccio d'Alando, got the aid of Genoa and after that, the Cismonte was ruled as a league of comuni and churches... then around one-thousand-five-hundred, Genoa ceded the administration of the island to its main bank, the Bank of Saint George, which brought peace… then, in the sixteenth century, the island entered into the fight between Spain and France for supremacy in Italy and in the meanwhile a Franco-Ottoman fleet occupied it…” and so as he says this things, we actually reach the coast around Viaduc de Corbière, an old railway bridge with some huge arches and some exotic beaches under it actually featuring Mesozoic limestone formations, this is, a site from where we can already sea the big ships making their way onto the port of Marseille, just about five ten kilometers away from here.