Around the World

Australia: Feb. & Mar.

2012-01-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

In February & March of 2011 I was fortunate to live & work in Melbourne, Australia. When I arrived, I was quick to notice the apparent similarities to England and America. It's as though the two cultures crashed into each other, and Australia remained. I found Australia to have the most in common with the US than any country I've yet to visit. Though the country lacks the geographical diversity the US has, it makes up for it in better government, cleanliness, a fabulous economy & Southern California like weather. The North is more tropical, and the South tends to have more of a San Francisco weather feel. The center of the , known as the outback, is dry and deserty throughout the entire region.

When I arrived to Melbourne I was greeted by a most beautiful cityscape, abundant with parks and right on the beach. The city is teaming with diverse food and, as in all large cities, packed full of immigrant communities, almost all from Asian countries. On day one I noticed and abundance of El Camino like cars. Definitely something to be noted! The good things is that I did not see mullets accompanying the drivers of those lovely vehicles, at least not in the city. ;)

For those of you who need a mullet refresher, here you go! http://mulletjunky.com/states/tx.htm

I took a long weekend and made my way down the Great Ocean Road and drove all the way from Melbourne to Adelaide (though I only made it half way!). During my lovely 3 day long drive I got to see loads of amazing surfers surfing a highly know spot called Bells Beach. I witnessed monster spiders, slow moving koalas, hundreds of kangaroos, lots of art and beautiful B&B's and cafes, and a gaggle or two of penguins (might I add the smallest in the world!).

Australia is the world’s 6th largest country by land size but the 52nd largest in population, with only 23 million people. You can fit Australia (including Tasmania) into the US with a little room to spare. Australia is the world's 13th largest economy and has the world's 5th highest per capita income. Relatively speaking, Aussies are living the good life. What keeps them wealthy? Mining. The Western states are pumping out all sorts of raw material from iron, nickel, uranium, silver, copper, gold, etc. You name it, they've got it. In 1901, Australia declared its independence from England and began its rise to power. BBQ power that is!

Yes, it's true. If you pass a park or river on the weekend, it'll be packed full of locals cooking up a storm, and most likely on a grill. Aussies are a very social bunch who, out of the Western world, seem to keep the most true to the culture of socializing. Whether it's at a BBQ, in a pub, in a club, at a house party or at an event, people are abundantly together. And, oh do they have events! It's the sportiest country I've ever visited. In city of Melbourne alone, there are enough stadiums to full three large US cities.

If you know Australia, you know Footy! Footy, aka Australian Rules Football, (http://www.sportingpulse.com/aboutfooty) is the national sport for sure, well at least those in the state of Victoria, where Melbourne is, would tell you. It's an awesome combination of football (soccer), rugby and basketball. They play with a rugby like ball and the goal is to kick the ball between the poles. It's like rugby in that lots of men in sexy ball-high shorts run around, passing the ball and tackling each other. It's like football (soccer) as they are kicking the ball all over the place. It's like basketball as a player has to bounce the ball. It's one of the most exciting games out there. Oh, and when you get a chance to go make sure you get a meat pie. A classic treat from the Brits that remains.

Soccer or Football? Only the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand call football, soccer. The rest of the world calls it by its more appropriate name. Yes, that being football. I have no idea why these few countries renamed football to soccer. I mean, why couldn't the US call American Football, soccer? In that sport they are socking each other right? ;)

So the Dutch and Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to explore Australia, however the land had been inhabited for an estimated 40,000+ years by the local aborigines who most likely came from the island nations of Indonesia. These people were highly nomadic, were amazing at living in harmony with the land, and could knock your ass out with a boomerang! Baaaa-jammy!

Oh, yeah, I said it. Baaaa-jammy!

Aboriginal people, as did most nomadic and land based societies around the world, followed an animist belief system. They used elements from their world to represent their spirits. An FYI for you monkeys. Monotheism (one God religion) didn't really come about until Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Judaism being developed app. 1000BC and Zoroastrianism being developed in Iran app. 600BC. Before those two religions, the idea of one god was pretty much nonexistent. It seemed to be more natural to associate the realities of life, to our spiritual life, before we got more organized in society. Makes you question what is real or simply made by man? Not woman made, for that matter. If women created our religions, we'd have religious books with fluffy bunnies and babies as mascots, pretty designs on each page, Eve (from Adam & Eve) wouldn't be the reason us humans are all born into sin, men & women would be equals, and women would get paid the same as men. Oh, and women would get a week off each week, to chill out from having to be around men all the time! Have you ever seen a female pope? Women are the ones who give life and therefore seem to find more appreciation for it. They are more compassionate and just. Simply put, religions around the world would be better if they had bigger muscles and could intimidate the men. Just saying. My blog, so nanner, nanner, naner! :)

Once the Europeans settled the land the Aboriginal population, which was estimated to be app. 1 million & over 250 nations, were sadly wiped out due to war and disease (measles, smallpox & tuberculosis). Remind you of another new land populated by European around the same time? Such a sad history, our human history.

Is Australia owned by England? Um...No. You're going to get randomly hit by a boomerang if you ever believed this. HaHa, just joking! It's 100% its own country and dictates all its own domestic and foreign relations. Australia is part of the British Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 50+ independent sovereign countries, most of which are former British colonies. There is little tangible benefit to these associations. It's manly a symbolic link between friendly countries, which happened to formerly be ruled by the British Empire back in the day.

Australia has an interesting arrangement of states and territories. The six states of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia and two territories Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT) have their own local regulations, however the federal government can override the local regulations in the two territories, but it cannot in the states. Voting is compulsory once an Australian citizen is 18. University education is paid for by the government up front. Once an educated citizen begins to work and makes over a certain amount, then they begin paying back what they were lent. If they do not make over a certain amount (for example someone who works at a non-profit not making much), then they do not owe anything for their university degree.

No, Fosters beer is not widely drank in Australia, contrary to the plethora of Fosters beer commercials we see in the US. Yes, most Australians can swim, well. When you pass schools you'll notice the kids outside playing are wearing huge hats. They are clearly to protect from the sun’s rays. Since it's such a sunny state, it makes sense. Oh, and if you pay attention you'll spot some locals walking around without shoes. During my travels abroad, whenever I see white people doing this, I always know they are Aussie.

Australia is a highly pleasant country to visit and exceptional to live in. The country makes my top five for the friendliest, best government, best weather & sportiest. I brought my bike to Australia and I was quick to find that, even when there were no cars around, cyclists would stop at the red lights and almost never break the rules of the road. Courtesy was a huge part of the culture. When it came to hello's in stores, opening doors, giving smiles and following the rules, Aussies...rule! Australia is such an impressive culture.

The only complaint I have is that God should have put some larger lumps in the land so Australians could finally compete in the Winter Olympics!

Some fun videos...

Kuala on Great Ocean Road:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcFZ4lIGK2E

Kangaroo munching out of my hand at Ballarat Animal Park:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zwz76P0V7Y

Some fun pictures...
https://picasaweb.google.com/104483957951273236491/116_Melbourne_232011

Bahamas: Apr. 1 - Apr. 5

2010-08-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

In celebration of my Around the World trip I treated myself to a 3.5 day trip in the Bahamas. I did nothing but chillax (aka "chill out and relax") and witnessed...

From the cruise ship I was on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMahD1dSfWg

Here is a shot from the ground:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gT41sam484&NR=1

Space shuttle Discovery was the last US based shuttle to make a flight to the International Space Station. Discovery blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:21 a.m. on Monday April 5.

"What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

Aurora Borealis is the surely the dancing of rainbows, and stars are clearly sleeping fireflies, right? Maybe so? Maybe not?

Only scientific exploration can determine this. Our imagination will get us there.

South Africa: Mar. 22 - Apr. 1

2010-08-03T14:02:00.001-07:00

Once again I set foot in South Africa but this time with a bit more ticks on the clock. In September 2008 I spent two and a half weeks rafting down the Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and Zambia and a short stop in Johannesburg, South Africa. I spent it with my closest of friends, Betty, Jen and Nolan. We lived on the river for a week and a half and then made our way to Hwange National Park where we enjoyed all the sights, smells and sounds of the African wild. We made fantastic friends who taught us how to respect and play with what Africa has to offer. Thank you to our fantastic friends! Please enjoy some photos from that amazing river trip and safari:

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Africa_913to103#

The first part of this visit to the country of South Africa was learning a bit more about Johannesburg. So I met up with my friend Cherry, who in a bold attempt to show me African culture...took me mattress shopping.

Wait a minute! Clearly this is something African's don't get to do, right? As they all live in mud huts, hunt for their food, eat bugs, don't wear shoes, run 18 miles a day, fend off lions, only have super dark skin, paint their bodies daily and jump around singing all the time. Isn't this what Africans do and what they are about? Ummmmmm, let’s see...no. Let me put it to you in this way: Africa is everything.

Africa is as diverse in its landscape & animals as it is in its culture & people. Africa is the birth place of humanity yet more people die within its borders each year. Africa is the scariest yet most beautiful of lands. Africa has more biodiversity than any other continent yet more species are being killed off than anywhere else. Africa is really messed up and yet perfectly evolved. Africa is big & little, strong & fragile, ferocious & loving, angry & joyous. I feel stronger and yet more feeble within the grips of its borders. It is the one part of the world that is most misunderstood yet perfectly understandable, once your feet have made friends with its soil.

Cherry had recently moved back to the city for her new job and made it a point to spend some time with the foreigner (that's me). In the more affluent areas we found mini outdoor malls, fantastic fusion restaurants, flowing Wi-Fi and a sexy nightlife scene. We found a super cool Hostel for me to stay at which had all the amenities the nicest of Hostels provide. At first glance, I kind of felt like I was in my home country.

The first cultural difference I noticed was how many nice homes were draped with barbed wire. This was evidence of the crime that exists in the city. Contrary to what I imagined the city to be, Johannesburg looked a lot like my lovely former residence of Pasadena, Ca. I soon found out that Johannesburg is a good example of the "haves" and "have nots". The middle to higher income areas were as nice as any in the States; however the townships, known as ghettos in the US, were no more than scraps placed together into dwellings. It was the largest disparity I'd seen in the world, and at such a grand scale.

Do you find it interesting that most of the people you meet from South Africa are white? There is a reason for everything right? Well, I think it started around the later part of the 15th century when settlers from Europe realized Africa was filled with riches (slaves, gold, diamonds, etc.). A combination of Dutch, Flemish, German, French and British settlers (smaller numbers of Scandinavians, Portuguese, Greeks, Italians, Spanish, Polish, Scots and Irish) sailed their way into the southern tip of the African continent, to what is now known as Cape Town. The white European settlers built up wealth within their cultural group within Africa and back in Europe. Over time, the ability to build material wealth remained within the white community and refrained from seeping into the local black community. During many hundreds of years of European expansion a local group developed which we know as the Africaners/Boers (local Dutch, Flemish, German and French settlers who were mainly farmers). These Africaners/Boers, developed their own language, Afrikaans, and culture through the years and ultimately saw themselves as more African than European, similar to how European descent people in New England developed a sense of nationalism in America.

By 1948, a solid South African government formed, one that that eventually repressed the local blacks through legally institutionalized segregation, later known as apartheid (said ‘apar-tied’). Under this legal system people of South Africa were segregated into 4 main groups "black", "white", "colored", and "Indian". From 1958, black people were deprived of their citizenship. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white people. In 1990 President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid, culminating in multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which were won by the African National Congress (ANC) under Nelson Mandela.

After learning of the current ANC administration through speaking with the locals and reading up on the organizations history, there has clearly been a digression in the attempt to neutralize racism, and unfortunately reverse racism has occurred in the region. Though whites in South Africa, generally, grow up with more opportunity, there is currently no way for local whites in South Africa to start a new business or join the military due to the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) movement in the country. Critics of the BEE claim that this affirmative action policy is creating an environment where the qualified whites are being left out of industry and ultimately forcing educated whites out of the country while black education rates are not filling the gaps and therefore causing a "brain drain" in the country. I don't believe this was the vision Nelson Mandela had when he took power. He has consistently claimed he let his country down. I am sad for him and his country.

When visiting the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, I remember noting that the South African Bill of Rights states that "No one may be discriminated against on the grounds of race, gender, marital status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, culture or language" and yet racism is still a significant precedent in the country.

I would like to note that when apartheid fell, thousands of white business men and women were thrown out of their homes, their businesses taken from them and their lifelong earned wealth removed from their possession. Also to be noted is that not all whites in South Africa grew up wealthy or had a lack of hardship. Many have endured severe racism, violence and injustice, equal to that of the local non-whites. The only difference is that the numbers of non-whites who have been through such atrocities is significantly more and there is consistently more opportunity for those in the white community, mainly due to the length of time material wealth circulated within that community.

Before spending time in South Africa, I thought that America had significant racial issues. I had no idea how minimal those issues were, relative to what's going on in South Africa.

"To be free is not merely to cast off ones chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others". - Nelson Mandela

Some of you may know that I've been doing triathlon for some years now. In 2003 I took a class at UNR which prepares people for triathlon. There was this one person in class who seemed to be the perfect candidate for my triathlon buddy as she and I always ran and rode right about the same speed. Long story short, Amber and I developed a fantastic friendship. She has turned her internal determination into a long string of wins in the sport of triathlon and a pro card.

She recently broke the world record in the Ultra Ironman distance and is currently training for the World Championships in Hawaii which is held this November:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Monforte_breaks_Ultraman_records__949.html

Well her boyfriend happens to be a 3 time Xterra World Champion, Olympian, and super duper nice guy. He also happens to come from South Africa and, for a good portion of the year, lives in Stellenbosch. I was fortunate to visit him and learn of the amazing life provided to those who live in the corridor between Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Conrad spends just about every day training his body to be in peak shape; however that doesn't keep him from enjoying a bit of hang time with his local buddies and downing a few cups of Joe from the plethora of fantastic cafes in town. I was fortunate to accompany him downtown. The bacon, cheese and banana sandwiches are quite a find!. On a side note, if you folks would like to know a bit more about the best triathletes to ever come out of Africa and Reno, please check out: http://www.conradstoltz.com/ & http://ambermonforte.blogspot.com/

While visiting Conrad, I was introduced to one of his friends. This gentile and hard working friend was missing some teeth and sporting a nice sized scar on his smiley face. Conrad shared with me that his friend had been macheted in the face and back during a period of genocide in Zimbabwe. He lost many members of his family. It was the first real story of such atrocities that, too often, occur in the continent due to racial and/or cultural tension. My sympathies are with all who have been through such terrible times.

Out of respect of all Africans, I'd like to share with you that the majority of non-Africans refer to Africa as a country. It's a sort of unconscious habit that many have, for some unknown reason. Just to note, there are 47 countries in the continent of Africa and more to come, Sudan the most likely of candidates to split.

After spending a night enjoying local dishes of Kudu (local antelope), saadz (corn meal) and various vegetables I flew back to Johannesburg, to once again meet up with Cherry. She had planned a trip North, near the border of Botswana, to visit her aunt and uncle who lived on a plot of land that was part of an enclosed community which was, in essence, a protected animal reserve. Those who owned property in this enclosed area built their own modest homes and their dues helped protect the plethora of animal life that lived within its fence. Cherry and I went on a jog and in that hour we crossed Muir cats, baboons, wildebeest, giraffes, Kudu, spring bok, dung beetles, wart hogs and so many more. A big thank you to her and her aunt and uncle for showing me the beauty of South Africa.

Some interesting random details about the country of South Africa:
The current ethnic distribution is 79.3% Black, 9.1% White, 9.0% Colored, 2.6% Asian. Aids rates range from 11% - 28% for the country. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological sites in the world. Extensive fossil remains suggest that various australopithecines (pre-homosapien species) existed in South Africa about 3 million years ago. App. 50 million people reside in the country. Two countries are inside of the country of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. The country has the most diverse set of people out of all the African countries. South Africa is the most populous country in the world to have legalized same-sex marriage throughout its entire territory. It can reasonably be argued that the country of South Africa is the birth of land based animals on this planet. The amount of land dwelling life in Africa is incomparable. They are bigger, stronger, faster and more durable in the African region, than anywhere else in the world. The country contains 10% of the known plants on this planet. There are eleven official languages are recognized in the constitution: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. The three most spoken languages are Zulu (23.8%), Xhosa (17.6%) and Afrikaans (13.3%). Despite the fact that English is recognized as the language of commerce and science, it is spoken by only 8.2% of South Africans at home. The most inspirational music to hit my ears comes from Africa (see below video).

Some fun videos...
African Dance in Cape Town:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDArmXA9Nk4
African song in Cape Town:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D1x5VGv5F0
Rugby practice in Stellenbosch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uYVzmGri4U
Township (aka ghetto) on coast just south of Stellenbosch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6E5TWxjc0
Penguin attack in the Cape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcsUg-E_3sU
Baboon party at Cape of Good Hope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g11ZGxR3as8
At first I was disheartened, thinking this was an auction for animals to slaughter, but I soon found out that these gentle hearted people were making bids for these animals to place them on their animal reserves to preserve these beautiful animals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bE5IpxwP3E

Some fun pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/SouthAfrica_322to41#

Egypt: Mar. 14 - Mar. 21

2010-07-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

On the flight to Cairo I decided to make my way immediately to Luxor to see all the sights. Instead of taking the air conditioned $10 shuttle for foreigners, I took the 25 cent local bus. We were packed in there so tightly that I could feel my body being squeezed by the men pressed against me. It was smelly, hot and humid and I was the only foreigner. So I felt right at home.

As I walked into the Cairo Train Station I spotted a huge green mat (see first video) with men beginning to kneel for prayer. Though I had already spent a month in India and 3 weeks in the Middle East and seen, and met, thousands of Muslim men and women, I was still surprised as to how visible the religious practice is. In many parts of the world, there's a bit more discretion in religious visibility. After seeing Muslim men praying next to their food stands in New York City, a man stop his job for five minutes in the shop in Kong Kong to pray, prayer mats in the living rooms of my Middle Eastern friends, and now travelers busting out a prayer before catching their train, I now see how tightly integrated Islam is to daily life.

Just before catching my train. I met a young man who I began speaking to. After a bit of conversation he asked me if I believe in God. I told him that I do not know if God exists. He showed a bit of urgency to ensure I understand that God exists. I told him that a goal of this trip was to learn more about God and the various ways he is seen through different cultures. I promised him that I would purchase the Koran, which I have since accomplished, and ensure I read through it from front to back. I'm not sure if he was initially disappointed because I had no claimed religion or if it was because I was not Muslim. I'm currently communicating with him via email to learn more about his religion and culture. I had to cut short our conversation to take the overnight train to Luxor.

When I arrived to Luxor I was greeted by a tour guide. After walking blocks around the city negotiating, we agreed to a train trip to Aswan, which I ended up in that same day. Aswan provided my first glimpse into Ancient Egypt. I visited the sight where large obelisks were created. These were usually built as memorials of past Pharaohs. Twenty-nine ancient Egyptian obelisks are known to remain. I also spent time on the island of Philea, where the Temple of Hathor rests. It is an Egyptian Temple on a small island resting in the middle of the Nile River. The Temple had been dismantled and relocated to the island as it would have sunk once the new Egyptian High Dam was to be finished. Today, this newly relocated Egyptian Temple houses the stories told in the ancient text of the Egyptian, which we call Hieroglyphs. For those of you who are unaware, Hieroglyphs were not understood until the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 by a French soldier. The stone, produced in 196 BC by Egyptian priests, has text recording a decree in honor of their 13-year-old king Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three languages on the stone, one in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, one in the Egyptian demotic script, and one in ancient Greek.

As for the Nile, it is longest river in the world, travels from South to North
(contrary to what most people think) and ends up in the Mediterranean. Most Egyptians live on the Nile as it is the provider of life in such a dry environment. Its source is from large lakes in Ethiopia and Tanzania. The symbol used to represent the Nile was the Ankh (picture to right). It is a symbol of eternal life and is seen in virtually every hieroglyph I laid my eyes on. Clearly the Nile was at the heart of Egyptian culture, as it provided life to all who lived in the region.

I arrived to Luxor and set up shop for $4 a night and spent two days visiting some amazing sights: Temple of Karnak, Temple of Luxor, Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. The Temple of Karnak and Luxor are the largest Temple complexes in Egypt. They house huge columns of Hieroglyphs which provide thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian stories. Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens are two areas near the Nile where Pharaohs were mummified and then placed in large dug out caverns underground. King Tut's belonging and body were found in 1922 in the Valley of Kings. He reigned from 1341 BC – 1323 BC so his tomb and belongings had been buried in these long chambers underground since then. I visited him and all the items buried with him, in the Cairo Museum later in the trip. The Temple of Queen Hatshepsut is the largest chiseled out Temple I've ever seen. She reigned from 1508–1458 BC and is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty. In comparison with other pharaohs, Hatshepsut's reign was long and prosperous. She was successful in warfare early in her reign, but generally is considered to be a pharaoh who inaugurated a long peaceful era. She re-established trading relationships lost during a foreign occupation and brought great wealth to Egypt. That wealth enabled Hatshepsut to initiate building projects that raised the caliber of Ancient Egyptian architecture to a standard, comparable to classical architecture, that would not be rivaled by any other culture for a thousand years. Maybe past, male dominated, Empire's could have learned from the Egyptians. ;)

After the amazing Luxor tour I had about three hours before flying to Sharm El Sheikh, which is in Sinai, the Asian part of Egypt split by the Suez canal and touching the Israel, Jordan and Saudia Arabian borders.

I arrived to Sharm El Sheikh and booked hotel for two nights. I was told by my friends in Israel that I must visit Dahab and I always had my eyes set on climbing Mt. Sinai, so there I went. I hired a taxi driver, who lucky for me, liked to speed, so we got to the base of Mt. Sinai in about 2 hours. I arrived to the base around 3:30PM and they said I came too late and would not be able to get to the top in time to get back by 6PM. The average hiker takes 3+ hours to get to the top and over 2 hours to get back down. I expressed to them that, no matter how far I get, I'll ensure I'm back at the front gate at 6PM. They took my money, I chose my guide (which was required) and began the two man hike. After walking about 15 minutes I told the guide I was going to run to the top. He said he is required to accompany me the entire trip. I asked him if there was a long way and he showed me the path. I recommended he let me jog the long path and he take the short path and we meet near the top. He reluctantly agreed and I began what I considered one of the most exceptional run/hikes I've ever been on. I claim no specific religion, however I'm a huge fan of human antiquity, and this spot is of the utmost importance of over half of the human population. This is the place where Moses was given the ten commandments by God.

My run through the severely dry and rocky Mt. Sinai landscape was solo, until about half way up when I ran into a drink stand, run by local Bedouins, and witnessed a man facing towards the South (towards Mecca) praying for probably his 4th of 5 times for that day. I continued running listening to various songs from Matisyahu, a Jewish musician I'm a huge fan of and fortunately saw in Los Angeles a few years back. His lyrics are specifically based on his devout faith in the Torah (Five books of Moses). I remember hearing him speak of Mt. Sinai in one of his songs while I was climbing it. It was the first time I felt goosebumps on a run while in 90 degree weather.

I visited the top for about 30 minutes, taking in the pain and love associated to this location, as well as the amazing landscape. I began making my way down and ran into my tour guide. I jokingly mentioned to him that he seemed out of breathe and and was looking a little plump. He took my statement in annoyance, turned around and started running...and he didn't stop. It's a must see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkxNkH6pNt8

My guide and I stopped running once the path flattened out near the bottom. At this point we were best friends and we began talking about every topic possible. When I asked my guide, just before we said goodbye, what he though about those who are not Muslim, he said "Allaho Allum" meaning 'I'm cool with ya brotha! Only Allah can judge you' (direct translation "Allah is all knowing"). Salim Hassan was the name of my guide.

I arrived to my taxi driver passed out in the back of the taxi (see pictures). I licked my lips with satisfaction, woke his ass up and away we went back to Sharm El Sheikh, going about 100MPH. I had to remind him that he wouldn't get paid if we crashed and that his children surely want him home with all his appendages. He clearly didn't get it and continued racing his car, once almost peeling off his wheels on some turns. Once it was dark I noticed that he and the oncoming car would both turn off their lights about 3-5 seconds before passing each other. Yes, they would flash each other and then turn off their headlights and turn on their left blinker. I asked him why he and the others do this and he explained that he doesn't want to blind oncoming traffic with his lights so they turn them off and then put on the blinker so they know where each other is. I expressed to him how the rest of the world simply keeps their lights on and he, in disgust, thought that was quite rude and highly dangerous. I then continued to pray that we not die that night from a car wreck. I'm not a man of formal prayer but at that point I felt it necessary to request, to all of the Gods & Godesses of the world, that I survive just this one day.

Part of the deal was for my taxi driver to take me to Dahab for the evening so we drove to this lovely coastal town and enjoyed a walk on the boardwalk and had some grub. He got me back to Sharm El Sheikh fairly late at night and we parted ways. I was clearly happy to be alive. My hands were a bit stiff from gripping the door handle for many hours. I spent that evening and the next day exploring the coast and its beautiful beaches before taking the shuttle to the Bus station. I was to make my way to Cairo the next evening to meet Simone as she was to fly in that next night to spend time with me and explore the country.

Sharm El Sheikh has these small shuttles that stop at various points on the road and for about 50 cents you can get anywhere. I waited for about 15 minutes for a shuttle and they were all full and therefore didn't stopped for me. Eventually a man stopped and asked where I was going to. He was in a shuttle, but one much larger than the regular shuttles, more like the vans Hotels have to shuttle you to and from the airport. He said he was heading to the bus station so I hopped on and sat just behind him for the 10 minute ride. As we arrived the driver turned to me as I offered him some money and he said, in Arabic, what I understood to be 'no worries'. He looked near my left leg and pointed to something. I looked down for what I though might be a bug or some money I dropped. I didn't see what he was indicating to so he leaned forward and brushed something off my left leg. Since I didn't see anything I gave him the "what you doing dude?" look. A split second later he was brushing this imaginary bug off my goods. Yes, he straight up touched my twig and berries.

My eyes rose, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I jumped back in disgust and immediately lunged forward to hit the guy...but I stopped. In that split second I somehow knew it wasn't the right thing. I quickly grabbed my bag and said "see ya jack ass" and went about my business, feeling a bit more violated than I had a minute prior. I gave the event about 30 seconds of brain time and then luckily spotted a falafel shop which immediately erased everything that had happened in my life. So, lesson learned...If you've recently been molested, just go get a falafel.

I hopped onto the bus which was scheduled for a quick 7 hour bus ride through the Sinai desert. A third of the trip was through a collection of sand storms. When the storms cleared I saw the most pristine beaches that have clearly not been touched. Every once in a while I'd spot a brand new condominium town. They were Ghost towns. No one was there and they were in the middle of no where, but I could tell they had been build within the last few years. What was even more odd was that the tops of all the buildings had the rebar (reinforced steel beams used for construction) poking out of them and the roofs had not been finished. I remembered seeing most of the homes in other parts of the country without the same unfinished roofs. I asked a gentlemen on the bus why so many homes had unfinished roofs. He informed me that building owners are not required to pay taxes on their home until 100% of the construction has been completed. In the US, that my friends is called tax evasion. In Egypt, it's called a tax break.

So I finally got back to Cairo and met up with the lovely Simone. We made our way to the Pyramids of Giza. I even got to climb on one of the pyramids, illegally (see pics), and we visited all the artifacts from the King Tut exhibit at the Cairo Museum, which was surprisingly run down but full of treasure upon treasure. We realized that the museum, though filled with the recent artifacts of King Tut, was lacking. What had happened is that the powers of Europe, over the many centuries that they were in power, nabbed all the highly treasured artifacts and brought them back home. So the museums in Great Britain, France, German, Italy and and now all around the world house just as many artifacts from Egypt as the Egyptians have today in their Cairo museum.

After one full day of the dirty, smelly, and ugly city of Cairo we decided to make our way to Alexandria. This decision was definitely a good one as the second we hit the Mediterranean coast, Egypt began looking beautiful again. Alexandria, was once the largest trading city, had the largest library in the world, had the Lighthouse of Alexandria (which was one of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World) and was for many years the most famous city in the Mediterranean. Alexander the Great instantiated the city in the 4th Century BC and it served as the capital of Egypt for a thousand years before the Muslim conquest, when the capital was then moved to Cairo. We had the most amazing dinner which could have fed 5 people, right on the Mediterranean. The next day we hired the taxi driver the day we arrived and he took us on a whirl wind tour of the beautiful city.

I rarely see Egyptian restaurants around the world however Egyptian food is in my top 5. They use loads of sauce, many meat and veggies dishes, it's a bit spicy, but not too much. Lot's of Mediterranean influence such as falafel, hummus, eggplant, olive oil, tomatoes, vinegar. Koshary is a local favorite, a mixture of rice, brown lentils, chickpeas, macaroni, and a topping of Egyptian garlic and vinegar and spicy tomato sauce and dried onions. It reminds me of a dish I accidentally made when mom didn't get home in time to cook dinner...that one day.

Some fun videos...
Islamic prayer in Cairo Train Station:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzB12cNRjw
Karnak Temple in Luxor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqyWcJMGxmQ
Sheesha (aka Hookah) in Luxor with Tour Guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqz-2oeFJJg
Temple on Philea Island (This a temple that was under water for many years before being dismantled and rebuilt on this small island):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymu1XDHhVeo
A local resident praying while I was making my way up to Mt. Sinai:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRLMC5bllP0
More of the Mt. Sinai path:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCx7PvZeXAU
Run with local guide down the path after visiting Mt. Sinai (as seen in text above):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkxNkH6pNt8
What Egyptians do when they pass an oncoming car (coming home from Mt. Sinai):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwePEOKQpFo
Proof that the Nation of Islam has gotZ some moves! (video in Sharm El Sheikh):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekyGCinwmV4

Some fun pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Egypt_314to321#

Israel: Mar. 9 - Mar. 14

2010-05-31T05:34:00.000-07:00

After my Red Sea dive in Jordan I made my way through the border into Israel and was greeted with a 1 hour bag check, which involved an officer taking out everything from my bag, spreading it on the table and even sorting through my tiny bathroom bag. After making my way into the country I spent the night in the bustling sea front town of Eilat. For the first time in months, everyone around me spoke English. It was quite refreshing to be honest, as I felt so limited in my communication with people. I've developed some skills to cope with communicating with people with a different language, (such as using my hands to draw shapes in the air, the use of my pen and paper to draw items I'm talking about, pointing at signs, etc.) however getting an answer in 10 seconds as to where the city center is, as opposed to 5 minutes.

I made my way North via the bus to a village touching the northern tip of the Gaza Strip. What was, honestly, a bit shocking was that everywhere I went, I saw young adult men and women in military uniform and a huge gun strapped to their shoulder. Half the bus was filled with 18/19 year old young adults coming from their training. The men are required to serve 3 years in the military and women 2 years. They are to have their gun on them at all times while in the military. I arrived to my destination where close friends of my father lived. Marlene & Jacky lost contact with my father years and years ago, and through the help of a friend of mine (Ben in France), Dad and I obtained their email and Dad, Marlene & Jacky connected again. I was so fortunate to stay with them in their Kibbutz. A Kibbutz is a contained community, a village that is partly based on a socialist like model, where everyone contributes to the system. For example, some work outside and bring the money into the Kibbutz, some work within the Kibbutz helping with such things as the cafeteria, the farm, administrative duties, etc. Some Kibbutz's, such as this one, own a dairy farm and plastic business which provided funds for the community. It's a system that works very well and is quite impressive.

Sadly, a week after being in this Kibbutz, I heard of a bomb that killed an immigrant worker very near this area:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/hothouse-worker-from-thailand-killed-in-south-gaza-infiltration-1.136640

After a fantastic visit with friends, I bussed up to Jerusalem for the whole day. Since I was not planning on staying the night I asked if I could leave my backpack for the day and the guy at hotel said "no boom boom?" Initially I didn't know what he meant and after asking a second time realized he was referring to a bomb. Yes...welcome to Israel!

I visited the old city of Jerusalem, laid my eyes on the Western Wall, this being the remaining part of the second Jewish temple which was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. I walked "Via Delarosa", the path Jesus supposedly walked with the cross. Built above the Western Wall, is the Dome of the Rock. In 637 AD, Jerusalem was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army during the Muslim conquest of Syria and had been under Muslim rule for many years. According to Islamic tradition, the rock is the spot from where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel.

The city is made up of various unique districts; Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Armenian quarters that comprise the Old city. I visited Zedekiah's quarry, a huge underground quarry under Old Jerusalem where limestone blocks were taken and used to build most of old Jerusalem. I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where a plethora of items, linked to Jesus, are contained. Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. He made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. The emperor's mother, Queen Helena, who had converted to Christianity, was quite impressed with the bishop's tale of the sad neglect of the sites of Jesus life in Jerusalem. With her son's blessing, she took steps to identify the place of crucifixion (Golgotha, the biblical name for the place where Jesus was crucified) as well as all other Christian specific locations in the city. Constantine decided to build an appropriate shrine on the site, which was then occupied by a 2nd century Roman temple and shrine that, according to local tradition, was built over the place where Jesus had been crucified and buried.

What's interesting is scripture states that Jesus was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem:
- John 19:41-42 "At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid." Indicating it was most likely a cemetery.
- Hebrews 13:12 "And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood."
- Matthew 27:39 "Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads" Indicating that the location was near a road which carried a lot of foot traffic. The Romans were known to perform killings on the main roads for the city to see. The location of the Church of Holy Sepulcher is not on a road but hidden.

Though there must be plenty of truths within the city walls, I find some things a bit too coincidental. For example, Adam's supposed burial site, location of Jesus’ burial, location of Joseph's tomb, location of Jesus crucifixion, the rock that split when Jesus was crucified, the stone where is body was laid, the cross was found downstairs. Didn't Adam and Eve grow up in Mesopotamia? It just so happens, that all these locations ended up together, once Constantinople's mother took the time to identify them. A woman, with supreme power and no one to question her. Something to note.

It is such a tortured city and sadly those in the different quarters do not communicate much with each other, and yet they are a few blocks from each other. I've never seen a town where such close neighbors, of different religions, do not communicate.

After my time in Jerusalem, I met up with Maya and Yaniv in Tel Aviv. They were amazing for having me stay with them! Maya and I took the bikes to Jaffa and checked out a cool spot having this bright red pot called Shakshooka, made of tomato, onion, egg and loads of spices. We then went to huge street party with dance music, had a few beers with her cousin and enjoyed the humid heat. We then chilled at the pad and enjoyed a nice night watching a movie, the beach just across the street from their apartment. Next day Yaniv paddled around and I swam a bit next to him until I got a bit too cold. We then relaxed on the beach and later in the day Maya and Yaniv cooked up an amazing lunch for me and two other friends of fish and eggplant and tihini/eggplant mix. Life in Tel Aviv has some noticeable similarities to life in many parts of Southern California.

I had to head back to Amman, Jordan to catch my flight to Cairo, so I took the bus to Bah Chan and got to the border and found it to be closed and wasn't to open till 7:30AM the next day. I was directed to a Guesthouse from 2 guys at the gas station and where I arrived found the price to be extremely high so I asked if I could sleep on the couch in the TV room and then guy said it would be fine. As I was eating dinner at the restaurant inside the guesthouse the front desk guy called me aside saying I had a call. When I picked up it was one of the guys at the gas station and he asked if I booked a place. Once I told him I was sleeping on the couch, he offered me his bed and has some teenage kids pick me up in 15 minutes later. When I arrived to this monster house, and walked in, I realized that it was a dance studio. Running down the long hallway were maybe 8 rooms, one a changing room, the other the kitchen, the office, the play room and a bedroom. I had it all to myself and loved the peace and quiet. When I awoke, I locked up and ended up standing on the side of the road for about 30 minutes and none of the minibuses picked me up, so I hitched a ride and of course, the border was maybe a mile away. I would have walked if I had known! At that border crossing they require you to hop on their "border bus". I could not walk across like I had from Jordan to Israel, in the South.

I then taxied it straight to the airport in Amman and caught the next flight to Cairo.

Some fun videos...
Western Wall in Jerusalem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O0x1L-7Vnk
Female military in Jeruslaem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZEBVVLEWI
Hasidic Jew: (I learned that the this style of orthodox Judiasm stemmed from a sect in Eastern Europe in the 13th century, which later became prominent in Poland in the 18th century.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoIvbqQZjmQ
Daily Tel Aviv drummers on the beach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWoISs7LnMY
The wonderful Beach life in Tel Aviv:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6wje4uCAnY
Free dance studio near Jordanian border:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8NsI_zGXBY

Some fun pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Israel_39to314#

Jordan: Mar. 4 - Mar. 9

2010-04-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

I arrived to Amman, the capital of Jordan, and after a day or so of filling my face with fantastic falafels, I made my way from the north of the country to the South through the hills of Jordan bordering Israel. I ran into a local Beduin who I purchased some small art pieces from, then spotted quite a few roman fortresses and ruins. Many of these old ruins were ones built by the Nabataeans people. The Nabataens were an ancient Arab tribe who originally ruled the Arabian Peninsula 2200 year ago. I spotted the dead sea before making my way to Petra, which was one of the most amazing sights to ever hit my eyes. Petra around 6th century BC was the capital city of the Nabataens.

When at Petra, I arrived to Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses). According to one account, Moses led the Israelites through Wadi Musa on the way to the Promised Land (Israel) from Egypt. Supposedly Moses struck a rock and a spring gushed forth and the valley was formed which was the life line of a city, which would end up being one of the most amazing places I've ever been. Petra is a city which has been created through carving out the local sandstone. The Nabataens channeled the spring water quite a few kilometers away from Petra through water pipes, made of clay, which I could see ran down the long path through monster rocks into the center of Petra. After a few hours of viewing the many tombs, palaces and homes of these people I was told that I could visit the burial site of Aaron (aka Heron), Moses brother. Long story short...I ran (in sandals) a solid 9km to the base of the mountain where Heron was buried, then proceeded to follow a path, which I mistakenly thought was a man made path, but it ended up ending unexpectedly as I found it to be the path the local sheep take when grazing the mountain side. So I hoofed it to the top, some hiking, some rock climbing, only to find a huge cliff that I could not pass. I was a good 5.5 hours into the trip and had no water or food so I decided to go back. This was the hardest, most exciting and scariest climbing and hiking I've ever done. There was no path, I had to climb on the face of very steep cliffs and got my self into quite a few messes making my way to the top. At one point I had to climb up a 10 meter vertical rock and failed many times thinking I'd be stick on that ledge over night.

I ended up making my way down the other side of the mountain and requesting some water from the local Bedouins who gladly shared. After running half way back to the main Petra area, these two local Bedouin ladies (one show's name I remember as Waheeba) pulled me aside and gifted me with their smiles and a huge pot of super sugary Chai. As I finished my job back to the main area I heard screams echo between the rocks. I soon found that this is how the locals communicated to each others. I eventually made my way back to the main Petra area and reflected on my 9 hour journey/day with another falafal...or 3. ;)

I was surprised to find that most women in Jordan, a very Muslim country, dressed similar to women in the Western cultures. Many of the men, over 40 years of age, wore the same sort of head wrap. One with a red/white design (see pictures). There is no oil production in Jordan so the majority of their money comes from agriculture, tourism and funds from countries like the US that have military bases in that country.

A childhood remembrance: I remember during my teenage years Dad and I visiting Virgin Gorda and us having to wait in our plane for 15 minutes as the US born, Queen of Jordan was taking off from the islands airport.

The next day I made a day stop in Wadi Run, the massive desert area which T.E. Lawrence explored. Mr. Lawrence, being Lawrence of Arabia that we all know from the highly acclaimed movie. In this huge desert area I hurt my ass on a one hour camel ride, viewed 2000+ year old artwork and enjoyed a thorough pelting from the flowing sands of the desert. Afterward, I enjoyed a fantastic scuba dive in the Red Sea in the town of Aquaba where Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt meet.

By far, Jordan is one of the most progressive Islamic Middle Eastern Countries. I was culturally surprised and impressed.

Some fun videos...

Jordanian traffic jam (aka sheep crossing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WZeiJi3068
Amazing view of Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pltCNBlxGpM PS I never made it to the top! ;)
Wadi Run ladies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feTpSrdqumU
Wadi Run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4fxzCiNMhc
Battle of the Camels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFIGM6wfGgg

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Jordan_44492010#

Turkey: Feb. 26 - Mar. 4

2010-04-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

I had planned on visiting quite a bit of Turkey however I was beat up from India so I ended up just chilling in Istanbul, Turkey for 8 days.

The first day I just slept. By day two I was watching fish pop out of the Bosphorous Straight (splitting the European and Asian sides of Turkey) during a feeding session and spotted dolphins feeding off them. The fabulous Simone joined me in the city and we explored its culture, food, spice markets and mosques. Istanbul looked European with first glance, but it's colorful eclectic art and Middle Eastern influence, proved to me that it really is where the West meets the East.

I checked out the Blue Mosque, Spice Bazaar, ran the Bosphorous took a ferry to the Asian side of Turkey, called Anatolia, Thrace being the European side. Topkapi Palace, the monster palace of the Ottoman empire.

Every day, 5 times a day, beginning at sunset I would hear the muezzin (call to prayer) chant through the loud speakers of all the Mosques:

"There is no God but Allah; Muhammad is God's Messenger; serve God and you will be saved, come and pray." I feel a sense of beauty and eeriness, at the same time.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest. Enjoy!

Some fun videos...

Blue Mosque & Hagia Sofia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLTSPTA6EK0
Reciting of the Qu'ran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnej2f_2xxQ

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Turkey_Feb26Mar4#5464474599777979906

India: Feb. 4 - Feb. 25

2010-03-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

India is the most vibrant, colorful, dirty, impovrished, goofy, inconsistent, confusing and amazing country I've ever been to. I have never felt such frustration, amazement or understanding of the world as I did in this country.

The rich flavors, colors and smells of Indian food are unmatched in any other culture. The women represent the colors of the rainbow through their fantastic display of clothing and style, the men remind me of 13 year old boys when their team scores in a cricket match or a song they like is within hearing distance. I'm taken back to the 80s when the bedazzled commercials were on at 1AM every morning. The Women display more gems in one day than all the countries in the 80s combined.

I've learned to wash my clothes in a bucket and can get spotless clean with a half gallon of water and some soap.

I've learned to appeciate some things in Western Cuture more, such as our amazing trash disposal system. Every Indian simply throws their trash on the street or out the window of a moving vehicle (car, train, boat), as there are no trash bins anywhere. And Im not exagerating. The cast system, though slowly shrinking, is still largely in affect. Locals cannot be promoted or demoted so they must marry within their cast. The majority of modern city dwellers do not conform to the historical cast system, however the majority of India still does. Restaurant service is not to the standard of the West, and I greatly appreciate the value of life in the West as there's always a big uproar when somoeone is killed from negligence. In India, it is significantly less and more accepted when someone does, even from preventable mistakes. There are more safety precausions and checks and balances to ensure the safety of citizens in the West, which drastically cuts down on unecessary injuries and death. I read in a Bangalore news paper that 3 guys got severely hurt by riding thier scooters into an open ditch at night. This specific ditch had claimed over a dozen injuries in 2 weeks and yet, on that very day, still had no safety cones or markings.

There are only white skinned actors and actresses and boy do they overact. There is clearly a bias towards the lighter skinned artists, yet the majority of Indian's are much darker than their acting counterparts.

I had two guys, at different times, ask me if all us US citizens we're having sex in public? As he had seen some American movies with that happening. I laughed and asked him if eveyone is dancing and singing all the time in India (referring to all the bollywood movies). He got my point!

When in Goa, I saw a child who had been killed by a car just minutes after it happened. His poor body twisted, leg broken, one shoe flew off. The locals were not in a state of shock and I saw no one on the phone calling in. The day prior, I witnessed a man being knocked down from a car while in the middle divider, and spotted more one legged dogs than you can imagine. I think it's possible India is fudging its pollution numbers as it's one of the most polluting societies I've ever seen, in the air and on the ground.

I love the structure and discipline of the West. The city of Mumbai added a total of 10,000 restrooms to its slew of slums but they did not set up a system of drainage, so when they filled up the people quit using them and went back to the streets. During the construction of one section of the new metro system in Delhi (which is the capital city and most organized) two ends of the tracks were to join up, but when they got within joining distance the engineers found that they were significantly offset. The newspaper spoke of the options the city was considering, whether to rebuild one side and displace people or create a connector, which would require the train to slow to 5MPG to ensure it makes the turn successfully.

Dogs sprinkle the street like leaves in the yard after a strong storm. You can't get away from them, though most are quite skiddish or calm. They all come out at night. In construction sights dogs & kids are everywhere, 90% of the guys are without helmets, ladies and men are working in gutters without gloves and helmets or barriers from the cars or safety cones indicating that there is a ditch. I saw more than a handfull of small fires lit next to businesses and phone poles unwatched. Since there is no trash pickup, the trash that is cleaned up is burned. This occurs mostly in the early morning so most areas have a smoke haize for hours.

Traffic rules are not followed, there are no fire reguations, most park illegally and many drive in the wrong lane and my taxi driver or bus has had to frequently pull into the gutter or side of the road to miss oncomming, illegal, traffic.

I saw plenty of solid Indian athletes, many playing cricket on every corner and football (soccer for you Americans) being a close second, yet the world almost
never hears of star Indian athleties or olympians. The government does not fund its amazing athletes so anyone trying to be a professional has to fend for themselves without any sponsorship. If they want to train (the athletes are of course city dwellers, otherwise they would be farmers in the rural areas) in the
city there is just no room to practice, it's highly polluted,and very unsafe.

There is always a reason for everything right? So why this state of affairs in India? Clearly, lack of government funding for infrastructure projects, sports, trash pickup, etc. We are so lucky in the West.

With all this crazyness, there must be good stuff about India, right? Answer: Absolutely!

The food is simply the best. The diversity of vegetables and fruits is fantastic. The people are very warm and talkative and interested as to where you are from and want to know more about you. If you are a foreigner, you'll surely get a few marriage offers. Men, who are best friends, hold hands, lean on each other and show such appreciation for each other. The West sees this as a sign of homosexuality, but here (and half of Asia and all of the Middle East) it is very accepted to show your love towards a close friend. I find this a beautiful display of appreciation for one another and something the West can learn from. I see many barriers in the West between people that restrict the potential of their loving relationships.

The world owes India a thank you for introducing iyurveda, raike, meditation, shevananda, tantra practive and yoga, and those are just what I can think of at the
top of my head. Indian's have set the standard for being able to be happy with very little. A bed in India, many times is a floor, side of the road (I spotted maybe 500 sleeping on the side of the road in Mumbai in one night) or a sheet on a few planks of wood. They don't use much water as it is sometimes quite restricted so they can easily wash their entire bodies with 4 cups of water.

All family members go to all the other family member's events so all gatherings are huge. And the biggest and most participated festivals in the world are in India.

About a quarter of Indians are muslim, maybe 6% Seikh and the majority Hindu, and they all live peacefully together. They are a model for what religious acceptance should be like. The majority of the time you can tell who is muslim (women wearing head dress or birka) and men wearing the muslim cap (kufie), Seikh's have the turbin and Hindu's wearing whatever is left on the clothing lines. ;)

The history of the country just blew me away. The beautiful muslim mosques, Goa's Catholic churches, the crazy Hindu temples (which look as though 11 year old kids designed them) keep your eyes on the move. The Mougals (Middle Eastern invaders) ruled India for 3 hundred years (12-14th centuries) and build such stellar buildings as the Red Fort in Delhi and the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan's wife, Muntas, died giving birth to his 13th child so he built the Taj Mahal as a moseleum as he loved her so much. The Taj being built from 1631 - 1653 by 20,000 workers. India is the birth place of Buddhism as well.

The British set up some infrastructure and established English as a second main language in the country, the Portuguese owned a sliver of India in the South in an
area called Goa, which is still a stronghold for the Christian religion and a great beach spot.

Understanding the Hindu religion is a job on its own! I read 2 books on the subject and only after speaking with a man on a plane for an hour, did I fully grasp its structure. When I asked this man of his perspective on non Hindu religions, he said that "all rivers lead to the same ocean". In 4th century AD, attempts were made to create some sort of order out of the mass of myths and legends, thus the Puranas (Ancient stories) surfaced.

{
NOTE: The above reminds me of the fact that humans create things when a need a rises:

Example 1:
Around 180-something-AD Saint Irenaeus layed the law down to only accept the gospels of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke as some sects of Christians were only accepting Matthew as the gospel and others only accepting Mark, etc. Saint Irenaeus succeeded in ensuring that the four gospels and only these gospels contained the "truth", thus the New Testament only having the texts concerning John, Matthew, Mark and Luke and not of any other apostles or people of that time. By 360-something-AD the 27 canons of the New Testament were put together and modified many times until around the 16th century when the Tridentine Council [council of Catholic priests], made some more modifications and then put a stamp on that publication.

Example 2:
During the 14th and 15th centuries, when powerful Islamic powers started to fight their way into Indian (Hindu) territory, the Seikh religion formed. All the people of the Punjab region (region in North India near Pakistan) were Hindu but over time their Hindu religion changed as those hindus were significantly influenced by the islamic peoples attempting to move in. Slowly the Hindu and Islamic belief systems merged into what we now know as Seikhism. Sikhism advocates the pursuit of salvation through disciplined, personal meditation on the name and message of one God. A key distinctive feature of Sikhism is a concept of God, to the extent that one can interpret God as the Universe itself.

Example 3:
The large amount of similarities between Buddhism and Hinduism. Buddhism coming out of India where Hindu is the main religion.

Example 4:
Judiasm, Christianity and Islam having the same father of their religion, Abraham.

Example 5:
Roman pagan religion mimicing that of the Greek pagan religion.
}

Anyway, back to Hinduism...

I'm sure the monotheistic (Judiasm, Christianity, Islam) religions that surfaced during the first part of the first millenium had an influence on Hinduism as it turned from a pagan religion to a monotheistic one. After the Puranic texts were formed (4th cetury AD), a trinity was created representing God. God represented by Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the administrator) and Shiva (the destroyer).

Brahma, 4 heads indicating the vedas. Vishnu is blue, as water is blue and water provides life. He has 10 main incarnations which represent evolution. His 10 incarnations are 1) fish representing invertebrates, 2) tortoise representing amphibians, 3) boar representing mammals, 4) man-lion representing the the development of animals towards humans, 5) dwarf representing incomplete development of humans, 6) warrior human, 7) human civilization represents mans ability to get organized socially, 8) krishna represents the development of the sciences (who is man with 64 skills), 9) buddha represents the intellectual and enlightened human (Buddha being incorporated from the BUddhist religion..once again another religious/cultural influence) and lastly 10) kalkin representing the savior of society (incarnation occurs during the planets end time, leading to rebirth of the planet). Shiva being associated to the Ganges as Hindus are placed there when the pass away.

When visiting Varanasi, the most holy of all Hindu cities. I witnessed the cremation of bodies on the shore of the Ganges River, the ashes thrown into the river.

I also saw a boat with 30 people which left the shore with the dead body of a small child, that had been wrapped in cloth and rock, so that its little soul would sink to the botton when placed in the water. 100m down river people were baithing.

Men and women are cremated, sadus and children sunk into the Ganges.

Swastica's, surprisingly, did not originate from nazis, they came from hinduism, representing auspicious, benevelont, a good deed or good wishes as well as the evolution of the universe. It wards off evil spirits and this goes back to the vedic times. This swastica is one going in the direction of clockwise. The Indian culture influenced Buddhist culture in SE Asia and China as I remember seeing the swastica over the heart of many buddhist sculptures. In Buddhism the swastica represented universal harmony, and the balance of opposites. In the 19th century a German archeologist discovered the swastica in the sight of ancient Troy (now in Turkey) and connected it with similar shapes found while digging up German artifacts and theorized that that symbol was a significant symbol of the German ancestors.

When a character of a Hindu god or goddess's hand is pointing to the ground, God is of charitable disposition. When the hand is pointing up, you are being blessed/protected. In Hinduim, prayer is not compulsory. One can meditate/pray anywhere. Why so many hands in various dieties? Because so many dieties were merged in the Puranic stories and they have so many skills and symbols that to represent more than two things, required more hands.

The most popularly prayed to dieties are Shiva (the god of the Ganges River where most Hindu's are buried), Ganesh (Shiva's son, man with elephant head) "remover of obstacles", Vishnu as the incarnation of Krishna, and lastly Hanuman (monkey man) "destroyer of evil". The more popular goddess is Lakshmi "goddess of wealth and good fortune", Vishnu's wife.

A man once asked a guru "How do I become a Hindu?" The Guru told the man to practice his chosen religion, and he will be Hindu.

Why are cows sacred? If you asked a local Indian (which I did a lot), they wouldn't know why. In fact, most Indian's when asked "why" something is, don't know. They just do it as everyone else does. Well the answer lies in history, as do most answers about culture/religion. The cow is sacred as it is a provider of food and labor. Since India has been one of the largest and longest, consistently running societies in the world, they needed to produce food, and lots of it. When cows are kept alive, their value is ten fold as they provide a consistent stream of milk (aka food) and high value labor (in the fields), additionally they make cute, cuddly pets! The net benefit of cows was so tremendous historicaly that at some point, during the pagan years (pre-puranic) of the Hindu culture/religion, cows got the sacred "thumbs up". BTW I loved being able to just walk up to a cow and make friends or see a bunch stopping traffic in the middle of the street. In Rishakesh, I was on the beach with new friends and a cow bee lined it right into my lap. I was a bit anxious, until it started licking me like a salk lick.

Definitions:
tilak = mark between eyebrows of men indicating the spiritual eye, similar to that of Shiva.
bindi = indicates being married ot a man and is only on women. This is the same thing as a womens marriage ring.
birka = full body and face covering on women.
turbin = head wrap men of he Seikh religion wear. They are in the NOrth in the area called Punjab.

I was blessed to visit Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala, Goa, Bangalore, Agra, Haridwar, Rishakesh and Varanasi. Monkey attacks on people (see video!), world history, poverty, colors, food, trash, diversity, cows, cows, cows.

I met up with my close friend Fiana and she said it best with a story. 'I was sitting down on a train and some random woman was needing a seat as the train was super busy. Without asking, she just sat down on my lap', she said "That's India!"

Love India!

Some fun videos...

Mumbai (Colaba) slum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuX1ov4BzR4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTrsU385VQo
Elephant Island:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r49kltl_KUU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeRfI7XHCIk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ggCCsTY_zc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jWuvvQoMms
Street's of Mumbai:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ1lyocqmts
Mumbai Slums:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SodNb2qa40
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkGIlhXc5KI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1UDKUwjl0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLHDZcn118w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhLFAbSBEMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRNyeO5K68E
Mumbai cricketers partying aftr match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSWeBE9jlRs
Fiana preparing for Shah Rukh Khan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTpWNmfNOQ
Flute player in Kerala:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bKPh4vkEwA
Train station:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwb8sraXPpk
India dance in Goa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bj60qdN3NY
Goa cow petting session:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JMXpwT98TE
Child drummer in Agra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suWgAWyJRY
Cow dung used as fuel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC1rQgXU3T0
On the Ganges in Rishakesh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tVrdugHow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_194DqXNxw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI9LuzNowU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-FWi0c2jWA
Haridwar train station:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nfdTH5QfXU
Kids in Varanasi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNCZKp8scRU
Varanasi light ceremony (ever night):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhMud_XThA4
Pissing on the Ganges in Varanasi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6ThbIx6d_Q
Japanese on the Ganeges in Varanasi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYyx2wL2OeI
Small child to be sunk into the Ganges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9a3bTmaCrQ
Dog drinking out of sewage, body being cremated and man brishing teeth next to all of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU2Eu9mEQ9c
Laundry on the Ganges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8kTr4Jfj3U

Some fun pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/India#

Laos: Jan. 30 - Feb. 3

2010-02-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

Four days of diarrhea, a tremendously dangerous 3 hour nightime motorcycle ride, stuck at the border by corrupt officials and having to pay them off, iPhone being stolen and corrupt officials making me miss my flight. Gotta love Laos!

Laos (said "l-ow") is a mainly rural country with most people in small villages. It is quite a hilly country with most of these villages hidden amongst the mountains. I flew into Luang Prabang and used that as a hub to travel to Nong Khiaw and Mong Noi which are small villages 3 hours from Luang Prabang. I rented a scooter and stopped an hour to check out the Tam Ting cave and the Ban Pak Ou area on the Mekong. I then spent 2 days in remote villages learning of thier ways. A ocal non-profit worker from Germany had just purchased a pig and had it cooked up for a feast for the village. I documented the process and tried the pic and rice that night. The next 4 days I payed for it. On my way back to Luang Prabang I made my way with 4 Israel guys on a treck through various villages with the Kamhu and Hmung peoples, which are minorities in the country. They practive pagan religions, similar to that of many tribes in Africa and native american groups in the US and Canada.

We witnessed hundred of rice fields. There were thousands of these spiders that we saw posted up in the rice fields. I learned that they move once a year by inhabiting the hill area during the rainy season and the plains during the dry season.

I then made my way to Vang Vieng, where foreigns get together and float down the river, beer in hand and just enjoy the scenery and good drink. I ran into a friend I made in Cambodia 2 weeks prior.

The videos and pictures do this country justice more than me writing so please enjoy.

Some fun videos...

Animals on the river on my way to Mong Noi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeWnl9ajzkY
Monks on the river:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMJ0q9hfnY
Mong Noi village:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-XF4pnWur4
Pig slaughter (DO NOT WATCH IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE AN ANIMAL KILLED!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxmmLOWsH
Trekking with new friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIn9PKXcUM
Village kids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKQVI58_eo0
Villager grinding grain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD6MECIoPjM
How some villages in Laos produce electricity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tZ8CjtGKgA
Party on the river in Vang Vieng:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMp4Ddj8lP4

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Laos_13023#

Cambodia: Jan. 26 - 30

2010-02-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

After enjoying two days on the Mekon via boat and some buses, I ended up at Phenom Phen, Cambodia. The majority fo Cambodians are know as the Khmer people.

I visited the National Museum where I witnessed a tremendous amount of Buddhist art dating back 1000-1500 years old. Hindu was a popular belief system before Buddhism took over in the area so there were artifact dating over 2000 years from the hindu art escavated in that area. I learned how carbon dating specifically works.

Carbon-14 dating is a way of determining the age of certain archeological artifacts of a biological origin up to about 60,000 years old. It is used in dating things such as bone, cloth, wood and plant fibers that were created in the relatively recent past by human activities. Living organism are defined as such because they contain carbon. Once the living organism dies, it carbon-14 begins to decline at a fixed rate due to the radioactive decad of carbon-14. Since we know how fast carbon-14 decays, we can easily identify how much has decayed in a dead organism and then determine an approximate time frame when such an organism lived.

I ran into this couple Tim and Jilian from England and the waitress told us about the Cambodian army shooting her mother in the leg many years back and the killing of her mother's best friend. Cambodia, as has Vietnam, been plagued with continous war and terror.

I saw two mormon boys riding around in their white shirts and pants in the 90 degree weather. That was a first in Asia. Sugar cane juice is a popular drink as well as coconut. The juices are served in a small plastic bag with ice and straw. I noticed school kids in Myanmar and Cambodia were used to perform a good amount of infrastructure work for the schools. Building walls, structures and landscaping.

Ladies are comfortable exposing their breasts to feed their children and are not self conscious about that in any way. I remember talking with a local, and her friend facing me and holding her baby qhipped out a breast as we were speaking, continuing of course to listen to what I was saying.

Saw a kid scale a tree without shoes. Just amazing!

After a day in Phenom Phen, I made my way to Siem Reap, which is the closes town to Angkor Wat, which is a huge Temple complex that was built in the 12th century for a Hindu leader. It was later remodeled for the Buddhists in the area once Cambodi become predominantely Buddhist.

The first hour I was there I asked a taxi driver to take me to a remote village far from the larger city of Siem Reap. He took me for 45 minutes in his tuk tuk, then I had to transfer to a different guy and we rode on his scooter for 20 minutes, then I had to transfer to another scooter taxi. I then arrived to a small boat dock where I then took a boat for another 20 minutes to arrive to the village of Kompong Phuluk. This was clearly, what I was looking for. Since the water ways we were floating on flood during the year, all the homes are built on stilts, very high ones in this village. We cruised around a bit and I got off the boat and walked around the village. The videos below tell the story!

The next day I rented a bicycle and spent all day and maybe 40km of riding seeing all of the Angkor Wat temples.

I had a fish petacure two days in a row. Later that night I went out the meet some people. I was chatting with some foreigners but noticed this amazingly beautiful women glancing at me at various times. After a while she walked over, ordered a drink and said hello. I was quite happy to be speaking with her as she was nice on the eyes for sure. While we were talking I noticed two other super hotty local ladies walking in, I looked around and there were various foreigners chatting with a bunch of model looking locals. It hit me jst then where I was! The second I had that thought I asked this woman if she was a working girl. She smiled. I laughed and told her that I was just there for a drink and not looking for that. I was curious and asked her a few questions about the industry and Cambodia. She said that women in Cambodia are either married or a prostitute. After spending some time in Cambodia, she was clearly right. Most women are married around 17-19 and those that are not go into the sex trade. I whitnessed many hundreds of couples working on the water fishing together. I s the same in the villages, the men and women working alog side each ther to get things done. It seems it's quite a utility to be married as they both get to help each other feeding themselves. Very interesting dynamic!

All in all, the remote villages and Angkor Wat are a must see!

Some fun videos...

Kompong Phuluk, a remote village outside of Siem Reap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T3_O6RJbvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzK8picfd4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WZFtaiVc7c
Cambodian Dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dosmLUB7dHk
Cambodian Music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxcPXI1RqWk
Angkor Wat monkeys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvStV7AsnqA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmexS38TzuU
Foot pedacure in Siem Reap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhCU809u4k
Workers on the Mekong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeYgv08iT50

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Cambodia_126130#

Vietnam: Jan. 22 - 26

2010-02-18T21:51:00.000-08:00

Once you vist Vietnam, you find you cannot escape the essence of war...or scooters...or rice. The people Vietnam broke away from China in the 10th century, then French colonization in the 19th century which led to the country plitting into the north and South, then the last large scale war being the Vietnam war of the 60s and 70s. The country must be one of the largest rice exporters in the world as every inch on the country is filled with farmers and their fields. And, scooters, scooters, scooters.

I met up with Sheila (a friend Gerard, Nolan and I made in Manila) in Ho Chi Minh city ("Saigon" to the locals) and checked out the night market. I love how all the condiments are shared, like pickles, peppers, ginger, etc. So once I was done putting my used chopstick in the condiments, the waitress handed them over to the next table.

The next day we flew to Hanoi with the goal of catching the bus to Halong Bay which is a popular UNESCO sight with dramatic limestone islands as far as the eye could see. After taking the shuttle bus to this large shopping center there was me with my backpack, Sheila with her rolling bag and a bunch of locals looking at us smiling and laughing. We clearly were not where we wanted to be. There were no signs as to where the bus was and after speaking with a local he called a guy who kinda knew English. We waited for him to arrive, hoping he could stear us the right way and next thing you know he is serving us tea at his house. He said he could drive us to Halong Bay. He wanted us to meet his kids and wife, so we agreed and ended up spending a solid two hours with he, his wife, 3 friends and kids. Van, the husband clearly smelt of alcohol so we ensured he was not driving us and he said someone would drive us. After pounding a bunch of beers with these guys at lunch, off we went. Na, Van's wife being our chauffer.

The drive was so fun as the kids loved playing with us two foreigners. We stopped two-thirds the way to watch Van pee in the small lake and guzzle down another beer. Good thing the beer in Vietnam is light, and the fact that I weigh 50% more than everyone! So after 3 hours of driving and 5 hours with this family we arrive to Halong Bay. The bay was filled with these large 2-3 story wooden boats they call Junk boats. These are the boats that tour the hundreds of surrounding limestone islands. We ended up having noodles ("Pho", said Pha) right on the ocean and booking our hotel next to the family and ended up playing with the kids for quite some time. I felt like I was babysitting all day. Na had a friend in town so we ended up at their house, which was quite interesting. The hosts were a newly married couple with a new baby. They had a karaoke box that Van started singing the most horrid Vietnamese songs. His shaky voice reminded me of a drunk voiceless guy holding a voice box to his throat. I, of course, laughing so hard I could barely breathe and the hosts rarely in their own home as they were kindly gathering supplies for our visit. Fortunately Sheila belted out a Richard Marx song from memory and was on tune, so my ears had a bit of rest from Van's rare voice. ;)

The next day we ended up on a Junk boat early in the morning. We left the beach but didn't get too far out. We kept circling and wondered why we were not able to leave the harbor. We asked the captain of the boat and his wife but could not figure out the reason as we did not know the local language. After 30 minutes of this we arrived back to the dock and two police officers came on board. There was only us two and the couple running the boat. After being questioned we found out that the tour we booked was illegal, as it left from outside the legal docking area, so we had to find a different boat. We were fortunate to find another tour and apply our funds to that after a bit of hanggling with another boat driver who knew who had sold us our tickets.

We ended up at this limestone island, somewhat similar looking to the ones in Thailand and one of them had a most brilliant cave. Please check out the pics as it's fantastically lit. We then stopped at a local floating fish market where we got to choose our own fish which the chef on the boat cooked up for us.

That night we ended up back in Hanoi and I unbelievably ran into a friend, David, that I had made in Shanghai. I was walking into the guesthouse I eventually stayed in and he was just leaving there after staying a night. He and I and three other friends had enjoyed dinner just 4 weeks before in Shanghai, and the reason I met him is due to friends I met in Xian, China. Small world...love it!

Later on that night we spotted this thin alley where we walked a good 20 seconds to arrive to this noodle kitchen. We pointed at what someone was eating and ordered two. For $2 total we ate two big bowls of spicy Pho and a side of fried bread. The floor, table and seats were quite filthy, the seat maybe 12 inches high, this being what I call a most perfect spot to eat. When we left the alley we saw the 80+ people eating on the street. This one restaurant was feeding all these people.

Jack fruit, durian (stinky and large spiky fruit), mangostein, ranbutan (small spiky red/yellow fruit), atis (colliflower looking), dragon fruit, mango, coconut and pomello being very popular in Vietnam, as well as most SE Asian countries. You see the locals always snacking on these colorful and shapely fruits.

The next day we flew to Ho Chi Minh City (knows as Saigon to the locals) where we said goodbye. She and I learned so much of Vietnam.

I stayed in Saigon and enjoyed my first water puppet show. I could not figure out how the puppeteirs performed their amazing feats. You'd think that their lines would cross as they did all the magic from behind the background, which was behind the water. There were no strings from above attached as we are familiar with in normal puppet shows. I still have yet to figure out how they do it. Please check out the video below. If you figure it out, please let me know.

After having visited Hanoi, Halong Bay and Saigon I decided to make my way to Phenom Phen, Cambodia via a 2 day combination of buses and boats. I traveled on the Mekong River visiting commercial floating markets, coconut paper and candy producers in the town of Cai Bei. I witnessed thousands of farmers who live on the river in their stilted or floating houses, visited the Muslim village of Cham and stayed the night in a floating hotel in the town of Chaudoc.

What I learned of the Vietnam War:

This topic hits home with me as my step-father was a Forward Officer in the war. Though he was shot twice and endured one of the more gruesome aspects of the war, I'm so happy he made his way back home. I found myself quite emotional when visiting the War Remnants Museum in Saigon and seeing the large amount of significantly disabled citizens country wide. It's very clear the chemicals the US forces dumped on the region during the Vietnam War severely affected the health of many generations of Vietnamese (as well as some Laos and Cambodia neaighbors). From 1965-1971 the US Airforce sprayed 72 million litres of chemicals affecting app. 3 million people, and this was the direct affect. Birth issues have arisen since then. 3-4 million Vietnamese died (total from both sides), 2 million were injured, 56,000 US soldiers died, 300,000 US soldiers injured, thousands more affected by chemical agents the US Government approved and app. 2 million Laosians and Cambodians were killed during the vietnamese conflict. The largest US troop deployment was 549,500 troops in 1969 and around 1 million South Vietnamese were deployed during that same time. 1965 to 1972 was the length of the bombing in Vietnam, 1968 and 1969 being the largest of them. For clarification there were two groups fighting. The Communist North, and the South Vietnamese being backed by the US military. The Viet Cong were the supporters of the North who lived in the South and faught against the South Vietnamese and US forces. I saw large amount of paranaphelia and pictures from citizens of all the countries around the world protesting the US Military involving themselves in Vietnam.

In 1979 (4 years after the end of the war) over 20,000 American veterans fought for the US congress to pass a law permitting the study of the affects of the chemicals used in Vietnam on their health. After the study over 200 million dollars was dished out to those suffering veterans, and those were the more fortunate US veterans.

I'd like to see what compensation the many millions of affected soldiers received in Vietnam, Loas and Cambodia. Over 2 million Vietnamese were significantly affected by chemicals used by the US military and I could easily see that the children of many of those surviving Vietnamese were affected. A guy serving me, about 25 years in age, had 6 fingers. I've never seen so many people with disabilities. I saw some older guys missing their legs from land mines, many people born without the use of their appendages. One guy's leg was so attrophied he had it pulled up behind his back and strapped over one of his shoulders so it would not drag. I also read in the paper that a man died the week I was in Vietnam due to him stepping on an old land mine while he was plowing a new field.

Lyndon Johnson ordered the attacking of Vietnam in response to an attack on two US Navy boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. According to the War Remnants museum in Saigon, the US Military fabricated the story about the Gulf of TOnkin incident in 1964 where, according to the uS Government Noth Vietnamese attacked the US MAddox and a second boat. It is fairly popular belief that the Gulf of Tonking incident was staged by some in the US government to allow a reason to move forward with war. Two decades later McNamara professed that one of the two boat attacks did not happen.

An interesting quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower, US Secretary of State at a meeting of National Committee of American War Veterans on Sept. 2, 1953:
"...Suppose we lost indochina. If that happened, tin and tungsten, to which we attach such a high price, would cease coming. It does not make a gratuitous offer. In reality, we have chosen the least costly means to prevent one of the most teible things for the United STates for its security, its strength and its possibility to obtain what it needs among the riches in Indochina and South East Asia."

It's been said that war is sometimes good for an economy. What I believe is not considered is 1) the monies spent on the recovery, which sometimes lasts for many decades and the costs associated with the recovery afterward. This recovery including money to care for the people involved in that war, the mental issues associated with those who participated in war, which are ever lasting, the turmoil and ill will brough about a population, the money spent on war that would have otherwise been spent on investing in the economy or education or research or healthcare. All of the above isted things has no dollar value, which is why they are not accounted for in a monetary assesment of war. I'm sure the majority of those who lost their family members believe that the war was not worth it.

I will never be educated enough about the Vietnam war to make an accurate assesment as to whether it was a needed conflict or not, however there is plenty of evidence that makes the case that the US government (or influential parties) had more of a personalized interest, than protecting the world and keeping peace. I see significant similarities in the current US based conflicts in the Middle East.

I'd like to note what a forgiving people the Vietnamese are. It's been a bit over 30 years since it ended and millions of Americans have visited and thousands now live in Vietnam and I never once found any ill will towards Americans. I'm sure it exists, I just didn't see it.

The realities of war and conflict are rarely discussed in the majority of the world, which is why I believe the same thing continues to happen. Without learning of the attrocities of the past, we are enabling those in power to repeat those mistakes (or alterior motivs that are negatively impacting humanity). I have yet to see an act of retribution resulting in peace. This is one of the many reasons why I find educating ourselves of world history and current events so important.

I'm completely empathetic towards those people, throughout the world, who took part in the Vietnam War. My heart hurts thinking about the terror that infultrated their lives and the lasting negative affects on them and the world.

Some fun videos...

Scooters in Saigon:
hthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JgCuVptEdQ
Water Puppet Show in Saigon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6cP5kPyZhU
Alley Pho in Hanoi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kToku7Lyjw
Halong Bay karaoke with Van and Na:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3vWIw06_c
Making of Rice Krispies in Mekong River village:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orah8yxU3d0
Love all the kids on this trip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoyOAq1Fcd4
Commercial Floating Market on Mekong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utBu_FNDfMc

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Vietnam_122126#

Thailand: Jan. 14 - 22

2010-02-13T01:23:00.000-08:00

So sorry for the large amount of time since the last blog. SE Asia has few spots where I could get the bandwith to load videos. I'm heading to Bangalore, India tomorrow so I'll be able to catch you up as that city is the Silicon Valley of India.

Last time I was in Thailand was summer of 2006 with my best friends Ryan, Gerard and Nolan. We explored Bangkok, Chang Mai, Pattaya, Koh Samui and Koh Phangang. Since I had a flight into Bangkok and needed to stay in the country to obtain my Indian visa, I wanted to see what the boys and I missed on our trip, that being Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands.

I visited Bangkok and stayed with Dena, a friend of mine from Los Angeles who started up her own hair and nail shop. She rents out a three story place, the shop being downstairs. She provides free accomodation for her cousin and the one hair dresser she has hired. She then splits the profits with her hair dresser to support the business. She rarely has visitors from the US so we both took advantage of me being in Thailand and visited the famous Floating Market, about 2 hours outside of town and the roof top bar at the Banyon Hotel. She and her cousin brought me to a most amazing dinner spot that is quite popular with the Thai people. It's a seafood buffet where you sit at a round table with a cooker and you cook the still-living seafood right in front of you. We had the shrimp trying to run away, but Dena's cousin was sure to keep the little guys in order. The locals enjoy sucking the brains out of the shrimp and the guts out of the crab. I stuck with the meat from the body this night as I was not feeling as adventurous as I usually am. ;)

A super funny thing I've noticed about people in Thailand is that they always say yes, even if they do not understand what you mean. Abot 30% of the time I would get something different than I ordered. Though I was very clear with what I ordered, making sure to point at the plate on the menu and confirm once, it didn't much help. I would always get a "kah kah" (yes yes) and then it would be a gamble whether I got what I ordered. It was quite fun that way actually. The amount of smiles you get in Thailand equals that of Myanmar and the Philipines. It's quite lovely, as smiles are infectious!

After 4 days in Bangkok I made my way to Phuket and the Phi Phi islands.

The first second I arrived to Phuket I ran a hard 30 minutes on the pristine beach. The nightlife is amazingly crazy. There was an abundance of grotesquely overweight white guys looking for young Thai prostitues. Some prostitutes being women, some being men. Sometimes it was hard to determine what sex some of the ladies were as some Thai men are quit feminine and look as amazing as the women. So yes, I was checking out dudes too!!!

The first guy I met at the hostel I stayed at, which happend to be right on the beach, was Graham. He was from England. We agreed that we must hang out for the simple fact that we have the same name. We ended up having dinner together and befriended two Australian girls. We then proceeded to bar hop, making friends with all the local working girls who played such games with us as hammer (where you have nails next to each other and each person goes in turn trying to hit theirs in first, usually missing and knocking the other players nail in more), jenga, connect four, etc. I've learned I can play a mean game of connect four! The local girls can still out drink me.

The next day I took a tour of 5 islands North of Phuket. I befriended the most fantastic family from Australia. The kids (young adults actually!) and I took these little rafts through very tight tunnels into large limestone islands ultimately ending up in hidden lagoons inside the islands that had been dug out over the last few million years from weathering. We ran into the local monkey community, mangrove trees growing dead center of these inner pools. I felt as though I was in the forest in the Avatar movie. It was breathless.

The next day I made my way to the Phi Phi islands. The second I got there I booked a bed in the local hostel for $5 and then booked a scuba dive for that day. I had one of my best scuba adventures to date. I logged my 103rd and 104th dives, spotting large jelly fish, one steel tip shark, one mid sized eal and a plethora of mollusks and fish. I was amazed at the abundance of sea life in that area. It equalled the Belize dive I did with Mandylee and Sabrina last summer just after Ben and Renee's amazing Tulum wedding.

That night I watched live Thai boxing. Some of the competators being local drunk men and women who were visiting, some being soon-to-be professionals. I posted a most amazing knockout that I recommend you not miss. See the videos below. It'll kock your socks off!

I spent another day relaxing on the islands before making my way to Vietnam.

Some fun videos...

Bangkok Floating Market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYiFuAWpyNk
Me feeding adorable baby elephant near Floating Market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2bywd57CE
Thai Boxing on Phi Phi island:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJMg7dk5umk
Phi Phi island caves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQh9Y7RvKOo
Avalon's jump from the boat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74N7BmRPqo4
Dance party at Dena's salon in Bangkok:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEiAc4579B4
Bangkok food:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSsF9MvE_DA

Some fun pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/ThailandJan1422

Hong Kong: Jan. 7 - 10

2010-01-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

I've been running around so much that's its been difficult to load all my videos, and since I really wanted to load up all the unique videos from Myanmar I was not able to show my time in Hong Kong.

I spent a fantastic 3 days enjoying one of my favorite cities (just after visiting Taiwan and before Myanmar) a few weeks back. Nolan and Gerard and our three new friends, who we met in Borocay, joined us for a night of fun. We dove into the markets, ate way too much, enjoyed the crazy buzyness of the city, brilliant nightlife, the most amazing skyline and threw in a bit of karaoke.

Some fun videos...

Lazer show 8PM every night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnThp7N1YNo
Fresh fish at food market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gfS6swTZs
Market in Mong Kok area of Kowloon, with Gerard, just before meeting up with friends for karaoke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbYUXdmKeJ0

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/HongKongWithFriends#

Myanmar (Burma): Jan. 10 - 14

2010-01-21T04:48:00.000-08:00

My first morning in Yangon, Myanmar I awoke to a man chanting on the street, the generator noisy as hell, birds chirping, and the power not working in my room. Since no windows existed in my room it made things a bit difficult, which of course was quite fun. Just about every faucet in Myanmar us not affixed to the sink so you have to hold the base of it, so it doesn't move. Only Chat (1000 chat = $1), the local currency and US Dollars are accepted in the country and they are very picky about having brand new USD so they did not accept half of the USD I was carrying. The men wear dresses called Longyi and the women and children wear this sort of face paint/makeup which results when water and bark are mixed. They then swipe thier finger through the yellow/white mix and paint interesting designs all over their face. The more reserved ladies only paint their cheeks.

I was fortunate to visit the capital Yangon, a medium sized village 2 hours from Yangon called Bago, the much more northern city of Bagan which rivals Angor Wat (Cambodia) with more than 4000 temples, and Inle Lake. Myanmar is far worse than the Philippines when it comes to infrastructure and the government is very repressive. Democratic rule ended in 1962 when General Ne Win led a military coup d'état. Outside of food, the locals cannot pursue private industry. The government sells all the teak wood and oil to countries like China and then pocket the money, not sharing a dime with the people. The roads are the worst I've seen, the energy went off 3 times during the 5 days I was there and outside of selling food and being a taxi driver, which are both taxed heavily, the locals can't move forward economically. Human rights is a bg topic in the internation world with respect to Myanmar. The military based government has ruled with a strong ruler sine 1962 and many have dies when they run up against the government. THe US, England, and many others in the international community have a trade embargo wtih Myanmar due to their lack of human rights controls.There have been disputes with the government and people attempting to bring democracy to Myanmar. Recently, a women was attempting to run for a democratic government. She is now in house arrest. The guy who told me of her had to whisper as he did not want to be heard talking about her.

The country has always been called Myanmar however the british called it Burma. The local people are the Bamar people but the English accent modified the sound and spelling of the name of these people and over time this area was more popularily known as Burma, instead of Myanmar or the land of the Bamar peoples.

I visited Shwedegon, which is the largest pagoda in Yangon. It's completely covered in gold panels and the top has a monster diamond estimated at something like 76 karats in size. I spotted more monks and nuns in this country than in any other thus far. I learned all I could of the Buddhist religion, the two main sects of Therevada (Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, parts of Southeast Asia)and Mahayana (Tibet, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, parts of Southeast Asia) and the life they live. I visited quite a few monestaries and spoke with the monks to learn more of thier life. In Myanmar, the monks can't have food after noon oclock, they practice the scriptures of the Buddha. Pali, being the language they study and chant in. The monks wear red robes and the nuns wear a beautiful pink.

I learned of the beginnings of Buddhism and the story of Sidartha, the first Buddha. Sidarth had a wife and child and left them for 6 years to attain enlightenment. Contrary to what many believe, Buddhists do not believe in dieties as in Judiasm, Muslim, Hindu and Christianity do. The focus is on the self and how to maintain descipline in onesself while bringing more peace and balance in the world, thus doing good. Buddha is the core of the Buddhism belief and has attained enlightenment. Monks transmitted his teachings after his death. Bodhisattvas were made in the image of a secular, royal prince-having reasched Buddhahood, they chose to stay in this world in order to assist those who have not. Guardian dieties looked ferocious (those being on the roofs of temples), but they are not seen as real dieties, simply symbolic representations of averting physical enemies and internal deamons. Stupas represent Nirvana. All these come together to compose the fundamental elements are of Buddhist religious art. Temple and Pagodas are a Buddhist's place of worship. They have an entry point where people may enter. Stupa is a symbol of enlightenment and is one of the most ancient icons of Buddhist art and do not have an entry point. Monestary is a place where Buddhist monks practive there Pali texts.

As in most religions (this issue being something I take issue with) women never obtain the highest position in the religion. There has yet to be a female Dahli Lama. I see the same in most of the popular religions. I wonder why the leading figures in many religions are always male when in fact the females are who bring life into this planet. Shouldn't we be praising the female? Women are the ones who spend most of their time raising the children into productive healthy citizens. Maybe if the constructs of our most popular religions focused more on the equality and harmoney of humanity, could they get past some of the childish biases built into their belief systems. I've had quit a few people say that I expect too much fairness in the world. My response to them is, "is that an excuse to not pursue it?" By tolerating the now, we forget to pursue the better path.

I hired a tai driver to go to Bago, about 2 hours from Yangon. We had a flat tire earlier in the day and then ran out of gas on our way back. The reason for this was that the taxi driver was trying to be kind and not have us wait 30 minutes to get gas. The gas stations are closed down in the evening so people have to queue up an the lines get quite long.

Bagan, was the most outstanding sights thus far. I ran into hundreds of pagodas and temples over 1000 years old. At one point in time Bagan was the center of the Buddhist teachings and religion in SE Asia.

In Inle Lake, I rented a bike and rode as far as I could and ended up in a fishing village which had clearly never had contact with a person of my appearance. The kids loved checking me out. After playing with these two adorable kids, their mother invited me into her home where two ladies were making cigars which the husband shipped to the local town. I was served greed tea and this sweet which was some molasis and various nuts. After about 20 minutes in this stilted house on the rice patties of Myanmar, I had a solid 18 people crowded in the house, just to get a glance at me. When I decided to head out, I stepped onto the bamboo balcony and saw another 15 or so people outside trying to get a view of me as well. I flashed smiles along the way and got even bigger ones back. Myanmar rivals the Philippines and Thailand for the smiliest people.

Some random information about the country:
A beer station is where the nightlife is at, nightlubs is where prostitutes go. The locals would always mix up "he" and "she" so when a guy is talking about his brother he would sometimes say "she" and when speaking of his wife would sometimes say "he". It was quite entertaining and I had to focus on staying on topic to ensure I knew what the locals wee saying. Either way, I was quite please as they knew english and I did not know the local language, outside of hello and thank you. Flights are rarely announced. Sometimes a person would hold up a sign for a minute with yuor flight nymber and the flights were always late so I really had to pay attentionan and ask when my flight was quit often. The Myanmar government makes cars super expensive. They don't want the locals to be empowered so the only entitiy you can purchase a car from is the government which would sell a car that is worth $1000 in the US for maybe $15,000, so of course the locals never buy cars as they cannot afford it. As in most countries in SE Asia, you take your shoes off before you enter the house or business. Another things I've noticed of SE Asian countries, is that they have very little dog diversity. I'm so use to seeing hundreds of different types of dogs in the US and Europe but these asian countries have only a few of the same looking dogs, short haired, wirey, thin dogs. I did not meet one person from the US until my last day in the city of Yangon. French, German, Thai and a few brits visit Myanmar. Breakfast was 1 egg, toast, homemade butter, tea, guava, banana and watemelon at every guest house I stayed at. About half the guys I met had bloody gums, or so I thought. I found out about two days in that these guys are chewing betel nut (said "Beetle") which is this red colored fruit that they chew like gum. After years of chewing this stuff, these guy's teeth and gums are stained blood red. When they spit it looks like they are spitting blood out but it's just the color of this fruit. Since the government limits what cars can be bought the locals became a bit creative and some vehicles are home made. There's one truck that was minorly mass produced. The engine lies on the outside and makes the car look a bit like a rhinocerous. Grandmas and Grandpas are as active as their children, tending to the daily needs of the family. I saw two 60+ year old women carying between them two pieces of 15ft wood that most of our grandmothers wouldn't consider picking up. The elderly are quite fit and robust in this country, surely due to their significantly active lifestyle and fabulous diet. The food was as good as Thai, a mix of Malaysian, Thai, Indian and local Mainly vegetable based. Early on in the trip I felt quite uncomfortable walking through peoples villages. I felt as thouugh I was walking through their homes, without asking permission. What I've found is that most land is shared and people walk through each others' land all the time so I have always been welcomed when tramping through a new village or collection of homes. I'm so used to not peeping into the windows of peoples houses in my own country so walking through someones front yard and being able to see what people are doing in their homes (as they don't have doors or windows) was a bit odd but now I crave it as I learn so much about them. Outside of Government officials, the wealthy people are the taxi drivers as they get the foreign funds from us travelers. A nice place in Yangon with 2 bedrooms costs app. $26 a month for a local to rent. Not one person I've met in Myanmar wears a seetbelt and rarely do you see anyone wearing helmets when on thier scooters. The people are definitely the frendiest!

A side note note concerning European's perception of American travelers:
While in 1 hour taxi with a couple from Germany and a lady from Poland, the Polish lady made a comment about the hyper speed at which Americans travel, the German's fully agreeing. She said she's never found an American that can stay in one place for an extended amount of time. She made a good point and there is truth to this however I asked her how much vacation she gets and she said 6 weeks. I asked her how much she paid for college and she said the government paid for it as she went to a public school. With those questions answered I shared with them that Americans on average get about 2 weeks vacation and we have to pay for our college. She was blown away that we only get 2 weeks however she knew we paid for our college. I asked her that question as that leads into the fact that US college students, on average, come out of college in debt and most european students do not, so the European students feel a sense of freedom. They have their degree, a bit of money and want to go travel before entering the work force. The US kids have much more incentive to start paying off their thousands of dollars owed money for college as they are required to begin paying them once they graduate. The combination of these two factors puts a lot of incentive for the US student to go right to work and not take a many-months leave from their country to travel and also explains why Americans hop around so much when on vacation. It's because they have so little time relative to Europeans, concerning vacation time. I asked her how she would travel if she only had 2 weeks a year for vacation. She smiled, and said nothing.

Average vacation per person, per country:

Finland 44 days
Italy 42 days
France 37 days
Germany 35 days
Brazil 34 days
Astralia 28 days (2 weeks can be "sold" to employer)
UK 28 days
Poland 26 days
Canada 26 days
Korea 25 days
Japan 25 days
U.S. 13 days

The above stats correlate to the percentage of travelers I've seen on my trip. In order, I've seen British, Australian, German, French. Small numbers of Japanese, US, Canada and Scandanavian. Additionally, there is no federal law requiring a business to provide a minimum amount of days of vacation in the US. The European Community (EC) countries (that being most of Europe) required atleast 4 weeks. This is one of the many examples of how our environment determines so much about us.

Some fun videos...

Lady selling flowers in Yangon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ue4b97pJjY
Schwedegon Pagoda in Yangon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL9IuIsJlw4
Government school kids building fence at school. I later found out from the taxi driver that they're teacher called them in as they are not to have contact with foreigners:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUjJup1S3MU
Market in Bago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7xMlGJuj4c
Market in Yangon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnu3eciQ58Q
The most amazing hacky sack I've ever seen. It seems every guy in Myanmar can play well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy4qDi1Bd4o
Floppy face with kids in small village in middle of no where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dNPlQ-zOfw
Bagan ranchers with their cattle and sheep. The first time they had heard an iPod before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ6rJDfMhug
Bagan farmers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULrNTOvx6xo
Inle Lake fishing village, invitation into house. A good example of the complications of a language barrier:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULrNTOvx6xo

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/MyanmarBurma#

Taiwan: Jan. 5 - Jan. 7

2010-01-07T07:31:00.000-08:00

I arrived to Taipei, Taiwan which is only a 1.5 hour flight from Manila. I took the bus and got off in the area where my hostel was and found an amazing noodle shop, with midget sized chairs and tables and the 2 lady chefs cooking right at the front with one of their husbands seating the customers. I sat down, my food promptly arrived and from the time I grabbed my fork to the time I gulped my food, this guy broke wind like it was the last one of his life. I looked around with my huge grin of amazement at all the other customers and not one looked up, laughed or smirked. This is a normal thing here, right? Ahhhh...yesssssss. I was back in China! Or so I thought.

Everything here is in Chinese and they speak Mandarin. Taiwan, is the country. Formosa being the name of the Island. Since the end of World War II, Taiwan has been under the control of the Chinese government, aka People's Republic of China (PRC). However, the local government says different. From 1945 to 1949 there was a Chinese civil war on the mainland where two groups of people were vying for power, the Republic of China (ROC) vs. the People's Republic of China (PRC). The PRC (Communist Party) ultimately won, which is why they are currently in power. Around 1949, about 2 million ROC people fled to Taiwan and set up shop. Since then these two groups of people have disputed the ownership of the island. In reality the ROC people have been ruling this island since 1949. There are no internet firewalls, there are worker regulations that are followed (unlike China) and the place is much cleaner than the majority of mainland China. I have yet to learn how or what the PRC has control over, but clearly the local govenment is doing a fine job of governing this island.

The people here have a sort of mainstream westernized coolness, a sort of confidence that Chinese mainland people do not have. There are no dirty areas here, infrastructure is kept up, the economy is booming. In sports, Taiwan is recognized as Chinese Taipei. I was fortunate to visit 3 night markets while here and they have every food immaginable. Everyone drives scooters or cars, they're all dressed up in the lattest fad. There are so many scooters that half the gas stations are only for scooters. There's a beautiful paved trail along the river that I was fortunate to ride on for 3 hours my first day. I have one recommendation, do not get off your bike to take pictures of the wild packs of dogs. They're a bit territorial. Having one on each side of you nipping at your tooshie is not fun. Trust me, I have a bit of experience on this now! ;)

There are some aboriginal villages in the mountains as well as some on some of the surrounding islands. These islanders have a bit of a more Indonesian look to them. The landscape is very hilly, similar to that of Hong Kong and very densly green with forest.

I was fortunate to go to the observation deck of the Taipei 101 building, it being the tallest building in the world. The next day, it was demoted to second largest building in the world behind the Burj Dubai. The elevator in the Taipei 101 is the fastest in the world.

I visited the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It's rated as one of the top 5 must se museums in the world as it has the most vast collection of Chinese artifacts. In 1949 the ROC grabbed all these artifacts and brought them to the island. I learned of the Han, Yuan, Ming and Xing empires over the last 2000 years and scurried to the airport to catch my flight to Hong Kong where I'll be for 3 days before heading to Myanmar (Burma).

Big hug to all!

Some fun videos...

Making bread in clay cooker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PECc5DO-pAs

Horn players on the river put'N the doggies to sleep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McC0o4JEBH0

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Taiwan#

Philippines: Dec. 24 - Jan. 5

2010-01-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

I met up with Nolan and Gerard in Honk Kong and we made our way to Manila in the Philippines. When we arrived to our hotel we had seen a few impoverished areas which we decided we should check out soon. The first night we hit up a local restaurant and had the local grub. Philippino food is very meat based so I struggled to find vegetable based dishes to eat. A most amazing dish is the Lapu Lapu, a local fish somewhat like a red snapper but less fishy in flavor and a bit larger.

For Christmas we visited Gerard's family in Quezon City, the church Gerard was baptized at and the house he grew up in. It was special for Nolan and I as we love Gerard as our brother and we knew it meant the world for Gerard to revisit. He had not been back to his home since he was 3 years old. Tito Nonoy and Tita Rori allowed Nolan and I to join in on the Christmas family fun. A solid 40+ people crowded the compound Gerard's uncle and aunt owned. They roasted a pig, had a huge buffet which ended with the kids playing basketball in the street and Nonoy pulling us 3 boys into his back room to down a fifth of Johnny Walker and knaw on the Pigs head. We had the best time talking about life and of the passions of our manhood. I'll leave the details in the pictures, as they paint it the best.

For New Years the boys and I ended up on the island of Borocay, a most beautiful island I must say.

The Philippines has an interesting history being a Spanish colony for many years, then American owned in the 1800s, then temporarily taken over by Japan during world war two and then in 1946 the Philippines offically became an autonomous country. 7100 islands, 100 dilects, 90 million people. I'm amazed at how deeply engraned Catholocism is in the country. Every taxi driver has a small statue of the Virgin Mary glued to his dashboard and there was a church (service being performed throughout the day) in the middle of the Greenbelt, which is a very upscale mall in Makati, a nicer part of Manila. I was fortunate to attend two services, both of which were overflowing with people.

Within a 10 minutes drive you can be in Makati, an exact replica of the granduer of US modernity (clean streets, no beggers and tall nice airconditioned buildings), and then in the slums of Manila. We had read about a fire which engulfed a slum in Pasay City, where squatters were living. We checked it out the next day. I was blown away by the amount of trash in the water, as everyone baths in this water, as well as the state people were in. The kids were quite happy with the Mad Max styled playground (burn cars, peices of building material, trash everywhere, no land to reasonably grow on) however you could see the parents worn down and tired from that sort of life. We sat with the locals, Gerard and Rudy (our taxi driver) being our interpreters, and found that 2-3 fires occur a year in these squatter areas. It's suspected that the land owner, or possibly the government, starts these fires to have these people move out of the area. After each squatter fire, the land gets developed quite soon thereafter. We sadly found out that quite a few people died in the last fire.

Random things about Philippino culture:

Philippinos are the nicest and smiliest people I've ever met. Just walking down the street you'll get smiles and hello's. I just loved it! Getting around the city is quite cheap. Jipnees (9pesos = 25cents) and tricycles (7peso) are the main form of transportation for the locals. I've never seen the Jipnees in any other countries. They are a sort of staton wagon meets Land Rover, but made with cheaply welded metal and a very dirty engine.

Minimum wage is 382 pesos a day ($12), income tax is staged from 10% to 32%. Anyone making more than $11,000 a year gets taxed 32% as that is the cap. So a solid tax rate is imposed on the population however I saw very little use of these monies. The roads, telephone lines, public works, were all quite poor. It cost 12,000 peso ($260) to go to public college a year, 80,000 peso ($1800) at university, public High School is 5000 ($130) peso, government pays up to 6th grade. 15,000 ($320) peso will get a family of 3 by, 300 peso for a one unit apartment.

After a few days in the Philippines it was clear that the men cheat on their wives a good amount. I began asking taxi drivers about thier family lives and of the 7 men I asked whether they had ever cheated on their wives, all 7 stated they had or are still cheating on them and they all said it without thinking whether they should tell me or not. It was as though they thought that I would be proud of them. Near the end of my trip I was sitting with 5 ladies, all of which took me out to coffee, and I asked about men's infidelity in the Philippines. The women said they knew Philippino men do this but one of the women had an interesting rational for this. She said women hate that their husbands cheat on them, of course, but they somewhat have to accept this as there is a 6:1 ratio of women to men, and men are hard to find. I questioned this statistic in my head but said nothing and thanked her for the explination. I looked up the countries census and in 2009 males outnumbered their female counterparts with a ratio of 101.43 males for every 100 females.

Staying on the topic of misinformation, I had those same women and 2 other people on a later date share with me that they believed all American children who get spanked end up suing their parents, so it is believed that no American parents spank their children. Since I was a bit more informed on this statistic, I let them know that there are plenty of parents in Ameica spanking their children. The women fell out, barely able to believe what I was saying. ;)

Customer service is not that good. Prostituton is quite popular and I've never seen so many homosexual men in my life. I'd say one out of every 20 guys I saw was a homosexual. I was amazed at the amount of homosexual and cheating men in such a religious society. I wonder if the strict rules of Catholocism in the Philippino society somewhat drive numbers of these social habits/preferences up. Some sort of internal cultural rebellion? Who knows, but very interesting! For clarification purposes and in case you were thinking I was leading into some theory, which I'm not... I find being homosexual is not bad, however cheating on your wife is horrendous.

The Philippines is a collection of 7100 islands, all of which are volcanic. Hills are everywhere and there's plenty of evidence this is a volcanic area, with volcanoes and hot springs all around. In fact, a volcanoe blew its top while we were in the country. I saw a plethora of pinapple farms. Rush hour traffic is as bad as NY. Friends said that many go to the malls and hang out as they have air conditioning as most homes do not. After seeing many homes, I fully believe that.

The Muslim men here have many wives. This is not true in the majority of muslim countries, however here it is quite popular. There is a large Muslim population in the southern islands.

I just arrived to Taipei, Taiwan yesterday and will be in Hong Kong with Nolan and Gerard for a few days before they head back to the US.

Some fun videos...

Christmas fireworks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNRUQCYS3Ko

Pasay City slums:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FW5EGc-E1E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQKP9JE0ExY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcPibScY5WE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hstxsOy5x0Y

New Years Ever on Borocay Island:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms4HoiRaj_k

Some fun pictures...

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/PhilippinesManilaBorocayIsland#

China: Dec. 11 - Dec. 23

2009-12-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

FYI Video and pics at end of this posting (in case you want to skip the write up!)

My life the past two weeks has been one of dense cultural education. China and it's newly assumed city, that being Hong Kong, have clearly expose to me the core of Chinese culture.

During 4 days in Hong Kong I realized how little I understood Chinese culture. Due to how steep the mountains are in Hong Kong, there is one area you could take elevators for 20+ minutes straight up the hill. I took a a famous tram to the tallest Peak and then ran the mountains and down back to the ferry to then take the ferry to the Kowloon side of the city where I was staying. Hong Kong is split into two main areas, one being Hong Kong Island (in the south) and Kowloon (to the north). A 20 cent (2 HK dollar) ferry gets you across the bay in less than 10 minutes. The Hong Kong side is very business oriented and has a bit of the New York styled skyline but it's more colorful, especially during the night. The Chinese know how to put on a light show. Most buildings are vibrantly lit and consistently glowing or flashing. I could not jog anywhere. I couldn't job on the sidewalk as all the walking ways are packed with people and are ever turning, increasing or decreasing in elevation and on elevated platforms above the road.

After Hong Kong I flew into Shanghai for a day and went to the tallest tower (The Pearl) in the city for an amazing view. I spent just one day as I had a connecting flight to Xi'an. Once in Xi'an, a more inland/centrally located city, I was surrounded by a huge fortress wall built many centuries ago. I was memorized by the popular Terra Cotta Warriors museum 90km from Xi'an where an old emperor had over 6,000 human sized terra cotta (porcelain) warriors, each uniquely created, and then buried. His intent was to ensure his reign over his territory by ensuring he had an army buried with him once he passed from this life. I spent a good amount of time with a large group of international friends from Australia, Spain, France, Canada, US and China. Many of us walked the wall in Xi'an and froze our tooshies off walking outside. It was consistently freeing or below freezing outside and I was fortunate to have picked up an amazingly warm jacket in Charleston, SC during my drive through the US which I brought with.

I had a fight back to Shanghai but my new friend Annie, from Toronto, informed me of a river trip she was considering. After a bit of research we booked this river cruise and were super fortunate to view some of the steepest cliffs and largest Gorges in China, those being the 3 Gorges. After 2.5 days of playing Mahjong, hours of Chinese karaoke (see video & pictures above) and having all you can drink green tea, we had seen a bright sparkle of the playful Chinese culture.

Via many busses, overnight and day trains and a 2.5 days trip down the Yangtze, we made our way to the 3 Gorges Dam, formally known as the 3 Gorges Project. The 3 Gorges Dam is the largest in the world. I think its many times the size of Hoover Dam. 2309M length, 185M high, 36 turbines x 700MW, total 18,200 MW. It was simply a marvel to have seen such an amazing feat of engineering. Over 1.5 million people and 400 villages were displaced by the damming of this river. The river is within 10M of its ultimate height.

Shanghai has an area called French Concession so I was surprised to see so many French in Shanghai. I got to salsa dance with a Spanish and Canadian friend the last night and just made my way to Hong Kong.

There is so much to share however I hope to keep this as short (which I'm bad at!) as possible so here are some random things about Chinese culture:

Women don't smoke, 80% of the men do. Napkins do not exist anywhere in any restaurant or street vendor so you must have your own. The locals use their pants. I got in the habit of stopping into Starbucks in big cities and stocking up on napkins or buying tissues from the grocery stores. Relative to other Asian countries, Chinese not only eat meat, but all the parts inside of animals as well. A popular delicacy, is goose neck. It's got quite a spicy kick to it and seems unappetizing, until it hits your lips. It goes very well with a beer or...five. While in Chongqing (the city where we began the river tour) I had hot pot which consisted of a super red and very large pot of boiling sauce and then many raw meat and vegetables inside dishes that you grab and throw into the pot to cook. The fantastically unique side dishes to hit my virgin tongue were tripe (cows intestine), eel, meat balls, radish, spam like meat, duck intestines, lotus root, and other unique elements I've blocked out of my head. With the quite consistent sound of restaurants customers hacking loogies and spitting on the floor in the restaurant, it was quite the pleasant experience.

The Chinese are very very good at not wasting any parts of anything they eat. At least the poor and middle class follow this precedent. I did however notice those more affluent Chinese would order large amounts of food and not finish half of the food. On the up side, I have yet to see a restaurant who doesn't compost so that food was most likely used to grow other vegetables. And talking vegetables, they are everywhere. I've never see any culture, outside of Japan, that grows vegetables everywhere.

Next to roads, between all the homes, in the front yard, in the side yard, in the back yard, on cliffs, on hills, near the trash bin. They just grown, everywhere where dirt exists and do it very well. When at the market everything is very colorful, large, fresh and amazingly diverse. I recently saw a video from ted.com (my favorite educational website) exposing the sad reality that 200 years ago we have over 10,000 species of apples and now only have a few hundred left. Most of the apple diversity is in the more agrarian countries, like china, that do not mass produce and grow locally and without any chemicals. You can watch the video: http://www.croptrust.org/main/

On a side note, I read a book called the China Study many years ago that my friend Kim recommended to me and it indicated that cancer rates were significantly higher in the Chinese cities and relatively unseen in the country side. If you pay attention to the differences of what Chinese people are eating in various areas, you'll see a significant correlation on to their health. Those in China, that being the majority (but is progressively decreasing), live in the country where very little animal products exist and they are all thin and look exceptionally healthy. Outside of a bit of fish and maybe some chicken, most don't each much animal products. Many of the city folk are quite obese surprisingly. Oh, and I just love how salty the food is. I'm known to be the guy who loves salt, so my craving has been met here for sure.

Many Chinese create these pancake like items with meat, eat or vegetables in them. They are quite salty and made right in front of you so you get a fresh meal every time. Most Chinese slurp when eating there soups. I've tried, unsuccessfully, and it's a skill for sure! One of my favorite dishes is a vegetable noodle and some dumplings or a nice noodle soup. All dishes made within 1-3 minutes and for anywhere form 4-10 Yuan (50 cents to $1.25). There is no such thing as breakfast food here. All foods are eaten at all hours. There are no ham and eggs, cereal or oatmeal. Noodle soup or rice and veg is the norm, for every meal and everywhere in China. You'll see in one picture I have loaded up that many items you buy are the entire animal. Little chickens are cooked right on a stick and served up so you et the legs and head and body as your meal. A side dish with my noodles was a bag of small fish that had been flash fried For 5 yuan (50 cents) you can get 6-8 inch wide dumplings or 1-2 fish sized dumplings. Pomello (a huge grapefruit like fruit) is quite popular as well as ass the standard fruits we have at home. Jackfruit is a popular fruit here that we don't see much of as well. And...I'm inhaling my food like I'm 15 again. I don't know if it's the amazing flavors hitting my tongue or if the walking around takes that much energy, but for whatever reason I'm pigging out. I guess Chinese food is less calorically dense?

The average cost of my hostels in China were about $6-$9 a night and had clean accommodation. In N. America and Western Europe the majority of us buy water bottles when thirsty, well the Chinese use these small metal or plastic canisters that that keep water and a pinch of tea leaves in it so the majority of water seems a bit colorful.

It is true that China has a limit on how many children you can have. You are allowed to have as many children as you want but there is a cost to having two or more. If you have a second child and live in the countryside you'll pay maybe 20,000 yuan ($2,500) and if you're a city folk you'll have to pay the government up to 50,000 yuan ($6,000). This is a pretty penny for a Chinese person, so the incentives to have few children here is significant, and working.

When I attempted to access facebook or youtube I was denied due to the Chinese restrictions on internet use. I learned from the locals that there are proxy servers that they can go to where they can have a friend in a foreign country set up a server for them to dial into and use or some websites allow this, such as heavymist.com where a Chinese person can go to and then type in a blocked site and it be brought up in that browser hosted by the proxy server. So, ultimately many Chinese internet users are getting outside of the Chinese government firewalls.

I now understand how China has 1.3 billion people. I expected that most of the cities on the coast had the population such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong areas, however this was a hge misconception of mine. The chinese are simply, everywhere. The country is packed full of people and there are many not so known cities like Chongqing, for example, which has 30 million people in it's city and surrounding area. China is the most bustling country I've ever been to. Everyone is moving, and doing it...fast!

I've spotted dozens of guys playing the Erwu, which is the 2 string guitar Chinese play. I love sitting in a park and watching these guys dive into their music. Contrary to my prior understanding, Chinese people are very very friendly. Clearly the language barrier and my own childishly biased view of Chinese culture had me thinking they were a bit cold, but after learning a few words and flashing smiles and waves, I had too many friends to handle. When on the cruise boat, Annie and I were the only non chinese people and no one knew English. This didn't stop those on the boat form talking to us in Chinese, testing out their English, downing beers with us till we passed out or testing Annie’s mahjan skills. When walking the streets in less popular street markets, mothers were handing over their babies to us to take pictures, which was a common occurrence. Chinese people are not too good at waiting for their turn. Coming from a Westernized country, I've consistently found it difficult to deal with everyone cutting in line while I was not cutting in front of them. I've realized that this part of the culture may have been developed due to the huge population. Either way, I've learned to bump shoulders and not get pissed or feel the need to apologize and I've learned to be more aggressive in lines to get what I want. I'll stick to the more courteous style when in counties that appreciate this, however while here I've learned to relax.

Cleanliness is not to the same level as I'm use to at home. In fact, I respected the boldness of women in the Chinese culture to take on bugs. For example, I was on a bus to Wushan from Chongqing and met these two lovely college students who knew just enough English to get by. We spoke on and off for about 2 hours and during conversation a cockroach poked out of the seat between me and one of the girls. Instead of jumping up in fright, this one girl immediately went into attack mode, with her hand to destroy the bug. Most ladies in the US would jump and avoid the bug, most guys in the US would either flick the bug with a magazine on the floor or maybe kill it, but this local girl, without thinking, went into Ultimate Warrior mode and had no problem smacking the thing with her bare hand. Very impressive! The same girls were also amazed at the hair on my arm. They said that no Chinese guys have hair on their arms and they had never seen or touched that before.

A few days back I took the maglev train from Shanghai to the Pudong Airport and the top speed we got to was 431km/h (267MPH). My entire time in China I've not seen sun. I remember this in Beijing as well, last summer, when I was here for the Olympics. There's a constant haze in the air that never burns off. I have yet to determine if the excessive pollution in China is what is allowing this constant haze or if the weather is naturally like it here. I remember my buddy Scott, a PhD Atmospheric Science student at CalTech, telling me that the more pollution or particulates in the air, the more there is to grab onto the moisture and refract light. I'll check in with him on this!

I'm in Hong Kong till tomorrow and then off to the Philippines for 10 days to visit Gerard and Nolan. I obtained my Myanmar and Vietnam visas today.

Some fun videos...
Muslim Market in Xi'an:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBw8mYtZ0pM
Little 3 Gorges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br5MnV5VKuI
Yangtze River Cruise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk1ddxPQ7BA
What I woke up to one morning on the Yangtze in China:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm574YyVCio
Hotpot in Chongqing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFFNjNEGGWM
Chongqing Temple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy_D6M-pJ1k

Some fun pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/HongKongChina#

Japan: Dec. 2 - Dec. 10

2009-12-09T10:21:00.000-08:00

I arrived to Tokyo for the first time since late last year, when I then traveled to Beijing for the Summer Olympics. My goal during this trip was to see more of the largest Japanese island. Japan is made up of four islands. The cities of Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima all being on Honsu, the largest of the islands. I ended up training it to Hachinohe, which was the most northern part, near Sapporo (where the beer is made), and stayed a night. There was a bit of snow in the mountains and lots of farming of mainly rice and cabbage. I had no idea that cabbage could grow in cold weather!

For the first time I took the Shinkansen (aka Bullet Train) that travels so fast that at times I'd get a headache from looking outside. When at full speed we got up to 180MPH. So my train ride of 500miles...didn't take that long.

A testament to how nice the Japanese people are; The ticket train officer would bow when he entered the train carriage and when he exited. I offered a guy on the train my chocolate candy and he thanked me for two minutes. I think he bowed to me 30 times in those two minutes. Another, I spoke to and he simply invited me to his house. The Japanese are clearly the nicest people, atleast to outsiders, than any other culture I've visited thus far.

I then trained back to Tokyo, spent the night and made my way to Kyoto. For those of you who only have a few days to see Japan, definitely head to Kyoto. It represents old and new Japan right next to each other. Though Geisha are quite rare now adays, I ran into one. It was such a privilege. Oh, and I spotted a snow capped Mt. Fuji.

Check out the pictures of Japan:

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Japan2009#

What I've learned about Japan:
Japan is the most expensive place I've ever been for transportation costs. A bowl of noodles will only run you $7. Parts of Japan, look similar to the plush landscape of Germany but with a darker, chocolate colored soil. Many wear face masks due to the flew. When you fly over or train, you'll realize that Japanese do not waiste land. Every little bit between every house is used for farming. It makes sense for the Japanese to be so efficient as there are 128million people in quite a small area. All the snacks in the convienience stores is actually food, such as rice patties with a bit of curry or fish in the middle. Tokyo is the most well lit city on the planet. Many streets didn't have lights as the lights from neighboring signs or vending machines lit up all the roads. All plants are manacured and there is virtually no trash in the city. What was a bit ironic is that for a city so clean, it had relatively few trash cans. The people are quite self sufficient and keep any trash they have until they get home and toss it then. The poor neighborshoods in Japan, are as clean as wealthy neighborhoods in America. When you review the World statistics on poverty, Japan comes a close second behind the US, however economists are puttin gthese numbers together based on the world income vs. the lower earners in that respective country. WHat is not included in the equasion, is the quality of life (e.g. cleanliness of water, safety of neighborhoods, plentyful food). Japanese people, with very little wealth still have a nice place, it's just smaller, they have clean running water, eat plenty and their places are spotless. The poor in Japan simply have a smaller space and less money to travel about. Unlike many of the poorer folks in the Western countries, the poor Japanese are super neat and clean. Cleanliness is clearly part of the culture. I read up on the Shinto religion which has played a major role in the belief system of the Japanese and two of the main focuses in the religion are on purity of mind and body. I'm not sure if the old habits of Japanes culture determined the cleanliness aspect of the Shinto religion or vice versa. Either way, I've yet to find such a neat and tidy group of people. I'm so impressed, with everything.

I arrived to Hong Kong yesterday. It has the most beautiful skyline of any city:

Tentative Itinerary

2009-12-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Dec. 2 - Dec. 9 Japan
Dec. 9 - Dec. 23 China
Dec. 23 - Jan. 2 Philippines
Jan. 2 - Jan. 9 Korea
Jan. 9 - Jan. 27 Many of the following: Thailand, Myanmar, Loas, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia
Jan. 27 - Feb. 25 India
Feb. 25 - Mar. 4 Turkey
Mar. 4 - Mar. 14 Jordan, Syria, Israel
Mar. 14 - Mar. 21 Egypt
Mar. 21 - Apr. 6 South Africa, Namibia, Botswana
Apr. 6 - Apr. 7 New York, NY

Update: May 20 - Dec. 1, 2009

2009-12-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

A bit of an update for you monkeys...

In mid May of 2009 I quit my Engineering position at the California ISO, which I'd worked at as an engineer for 6 years. I visited my Dad and Ali in St. Croix, in the US Virgin Islands, then headed back to Los Angeles to pack up up my newly purchased 2008 Dodge Caravan and made my way back to Reno, NV. I spent 3 weeks fixing up one of my rental houses, spend some fabulous days with my close friends Fiana and Kim at the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA and ended up renting my house out just in time to make it to a most amazing Ultraman Canada event to watch my good friend Amber absolutely destroy the record books, being the fastest woman to do an Ultraman event. Conrad and I were fortunate to have been able to support Amber during her brilliant effort in Penticton, BC. Feel free to check out Conrad's link for more information:

http://www.conradstoltz.com/amber-monforte-breaks-all-the-records-to-win-ultraman-canada/

I then made my way through the Northern States (Seattle, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania). I ran into two black bears on my bike in Yellowstone National Park and a Grizzly while driving the park loop. I enjoyed the solace of sleeping in the deep wilderness and vast farms of the Midwest. I visited Mom and Stew in Colorado as they were there for business and I made my way through Chicago, visiting friends, and eventually to New York to watch my close friends Gerard and Nolan complete the New York Half Marathon. Soon thereafter I headed up to Amherst, Massachusetts for about 5 days to visit my buddy Kevin and do a bit of triathlon training. He kindly kept my "soccer mom car" or "Grammy van", as he deemed it, and I made my way back into New York. I was fortunate to spend that weekend with my friend Norman, who flew in from Los Angeles for his birthday, along with Kevin as our lingerie model and tour guide.

Gerard and Nolan made their way back to New York from a trip to Brazil and we were fortunate to spend a most energetic and fantastic 5 weeks together. Living in the city is a must for anyone who wants the big city life. I've yet to find a city that can match the energy NY has to offer and I can't thank my boys enough for their hospitality.

After being in New York for over a month I flew to Munich, Germany and met up with Mom. She and I spend two fantastic days at Oktoberfest before doing a 3 week driving tour of Austria, Italy and Switzerland.

Here are some pics of Europe:

http://picasaweb.google.com/graham.w.bartlett/Europe_mom_101to10262009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNaSgteSob6LOg&feat=directlink

Mom and I thoroughly visited Italy; Venice, Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terra and Milan were all amazing stops during our driving tour. We ended up at my buddy Roman's plane in Lucerne, Switzerland and he showed us how much Switzerland has to offer. The Alps were stunning and the accommodation the best. Thank you Roman! Mom left for Reno and I trained it to Strasbourg, France where I met up with my buddy Ben. I spent time with he and his parents, who fed me to the brim with amazing local cuisine. I then made a two day stop in Iceland and ended up having the nicest sight to ever hit my eyes, the Aurora Borelais (Northern Lights). It's a must see before you kick the bucket.

I made my way back to NY for Halloween, and then Massachusetts to grab my car and drove through the entire East coast and made a fabulous stop to visit friends in DC, Charlotte, NC, Miami, FL, and all over Texas. I explored the South during this trip and had my fare share of grits, jambalaya, etouffee, and deep fried...everything.

On my way to Reno I made my way through about 300 miles of Mexico from Juaraz, MX near El Paso, TX to Aqua Prieta, MX near Douglas, AZ and eventually back into Reno visiting friends and family.

Tomorrow is the first day of my 4 month trip through Asia, Middle East and the Southern Part of Africa. Stay tuned!