Some leave their heart in San Francisco. In The Philippines, I abandoned my bike in San Francisco. It’s about as far away from cack hole Manilla, as you can fly, ferry, and ride, in a few days visit.

I had no preconceived ideas about the Philippines beyond the usual stereotypes. The reality of some of the stereotypes hit me barrage of guns, blood and sex.

It’s not a pretty sight, Manilla, even for the most hardened of travellers, like myself after 350 days on the road. But kind like the kids swimming in sea water and shit that stinks from 400m back, I could find some entertainment in Manilla. Remind me to make any yachting stay over at Manila yacht club as brief as possible, for fear of death from (04) 1832-4874aromatic fecal poisoning. Sure to form, the US has left its imperialist calling card in Manilla, with rampant prostitution, gun mad mentality, and a rich, corrupt and permanent rulership, that serves its self lavishly, whilst impoverishing its populace. The Economic Hitmen like Perkins sure did a masterful job in fucking the poor Philippines. I have a social theory, now well developed after months in impoverished countries, that goes like this>> The more evil, greedy and corrupt the governance, the more tolerant, shiny and lovely the people. The Philippines is a classic example.

Sure, especially after Thailand, the Filipinos can’t cook, but hey, they can sing…in fact they are the most musical mob I’ve met. If you can’t sing, or play a musical instrument in the Philippines, you are a foreigner.

And you ain’t experienced the Philippines, as Lonely Planet suggests, unless you have drunk the cheap local suds, and slaughtered a tune or two at the local karaoke bar. I complied. But I went one further. I did the Sound of Music in helmets. What the?…you may ask.

Well, a cute singing and dance instructor called Ella Marie  decided to hijack my  life for a few days, and off we sailed, by scooter, to a few hundred beachside miles, of Gloria Gaynor hits, like, ‘You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off’ a you…”.

I, on the other hand, could take my eyes off the road, even though I was theoretically driving. You don’t have a back seat on bike as far away from the handlebars as you may think. And as Ella could ride as well as sing, and, well, ah, she just took over the driving (and singing ) bit, from the back seat. Technical types might note…. the scooter had no foot pedals, it was automatic. So down the coconut lined villages of southern Cebu and Negros we rode, half the time me driving, half the time the back seat in control,  hands under my arms, and much of the time, singing along like right idiots, in helmets. Or one helmet, at least.

I might add, Ella certainly did not slaughter a song. Infact, at any of the several karaoke bars we dropped in at, Ella slaughtered only competing singers. She was a pro. And, added to that, as a dance instructor,was  given to 3 second pole dancing hints, that showed who was in charge. (more…)

Fullmoon parties, pool parties, foam parties, black moon and half moon parties, reggae parties….anyone would think Koh Phangan in Thailand had something to do with parties.  They have a beach party on the fullmoon each month, that is indeed a bit of an international phenomena, and at the same time, same, same.

By coincidence, it was fullmoon the night I set foot on Koh Phangan, along with a D Day landing of international partygoers. I’ve never seen a ferry full of such excitement. They came from Dubai, Dublin and Damascus. Berlin, Beirut and Brighton. You name it, every nationality was represented.

About 750m of beach bars, and a couple of hundred franchisees bid for punters, like bull market traders after the Lehman’s crash. In most nightclubs, you need to cue, beg and wink to be given the privilege of being ripped off $8 for post-mix mess. In Phagnan, it’s the other way around, the barmen, women, and their families, each squeezed into about a meter of beach front  franchise, do performance acts and serious theatre, simply to sell a drink. But drinks don’t come by the glass, but by the bucket > so buy the bucket I did.  $7 gets you into a 6 inch bucket full of ice, a hip flask full of ya’ favourite poison, and a tin of soft drink to stomach it, and often, a shooter bottle of red bull, to keep you conscious. Ya gotta love that Red Bull’s Taurine…or whatever it’s called, the secret ingredient first invented to boost half dead soldiers under night after night of enemy fire in Nam. Night after night of heavy partying in Thailand obviously must have its similarities.

It’s all a bit toxic really, but hey, ever since tribal man was hoofing down the psilocybin laced psycodelics before a bit of foot stomping shamanic fun, tribal dance has not always been a health sport.

In Thailand a few years back, Thacksin , the rightwing  capitalist in left wing disguise, drove Thailand from worship of the spirits, to worship of the new TV, washing machine and condo, and in the process, he decided that the chilled-out, Thai stick culture of Siam had to go, along with most other traditional ways, and so he dutifully got about shooting, on sight, about 20 drug dealers each day. No filling the courts and prisons. No trials. No questions. Just shoot’em dead. The result was the whiskey and beer culture,  along with its sad bed partner, mindless materialism, sweeping over the old Thailand, in due reverence to the world’s command and control office the at the US’s FDA.  So the new pissed parties of the once hip Koh Phangan have a dancer-to-watcher ratio of about 1 to 4. Compare this to Melbourne, where 5000 head dance parties have 4 dancers for every 1 watcher. It would not be unreasonable to suggest some bio chemistry of the illegal kind is behind such ratios.

But on cue, and seemingly unnoticed by the crowds pouring onto the beach in 5 wide human streams, the Fullmoon rose over the water, adorned herself with a mystic ring, and dutifully oversaw all that is sexual and rhythmic about her partner, Gaia. Longtail’s powered on their turbo diesel Toyota’s, slicing silvery paths across the bay, as they shipped in yet more farungs, for their beach bucket bonaza.

It was the end of the footy season, with St Kilda just losing to Geelong in the last desperate minutes, after 40 years in the desert,  and now with maybe another 40 to go. Geelong, on the other hand, had to do what all footy teams do once the fitness season ends, and the booze and pillage season begins, by shipping the team out on mass (so as the Aussie press doesn’t see what the boys get up to). Some get blown up. All get pissed. Some get obviously more than just pissed. And in the safe knowledge that a million Kath and Kim’s are hanging out to give them happy endings, the Geelong boys tend to get a bit extraverted, shall we say, when let loose on the Fullmoon beach parties. They sure made enthusiastic drinking mates, as each bucket comes with 3 straws, and a range of flavours, all of which the boys insisted I sample. I had qualified as a  their drinking mate,  simply by being a Aussie male, oi, oi ,oi. Urp.

The under 30’s scene of Koh Phangan, a few miles from Samui, is a lot messier, but not to dissimilar to the goings on of the Lamai bars, in the outrageously over developed Koh Samui. I suppose I shouldn’t judge Samui as over developed, when in fact the same thing can be said of just about every Asian resort beach town. Infact, to the land bound traveller, just about any third world beach, has seen some disgusting side effects of tourism.

I sailed to Thailand about 22 years ago. I loved it so much back then, that we threw a 2 month party in which I ended up being married in a big raft up of yachts, in Ko Phi Phi bay. Back then Patong was a cluster of girlie bars and street vendors, not the highrise town planning debacle that even a good Tsumani couldn’t clean up. No one had refrigerators, and so the seafood was so fresh it wiggled.  Even straight laced retired bank managers, cruising  on their yachts , could be seen shopping in Phuket town for their groceries, giggling and eating munchies, in a land where a pound of pot was neither a big crime, nor more expensive than a slab of beer. Half the successful drug runners of the world, with their 60 footers and Milano model girlfriends, were at anchor of Phuket in serious seagoing kit. Tales of gun battles at sea, simply sailing the Malacca straights were not uncommon, and everyone was well armed, me included, and the arms didn’t just sit in their pouches rusting, they had, regrettably to be drawn and aimed, on  a couple of occasions, in my experience at least. Thank goodness the trigger never needed to be pulled, as a smiling Thai waving an empty engine oil container, as his fishing boat approached, sure could be quick to swap a grin for an AK47 . My pump action, sawn off, pistol grip Mossberg, sure had a way of getting the message across when displayed. In the late eighties, it was not unheard off, for a Thai fishing crew to do a quick night time beach landing, fully armed, and hold up the entire guest list of the Patong bungalows.

It was even wilder in the mid seventies, when I first hit the Malay Hotel in Bangkok at 20 years old, the hotel being the origin of several movies on the subject that followed. The Malay was where everyone went, on a budget. 6 or 7 floors of farungs ( thats me), stoned hippies ( that wasn’t me, then at least), mixed in with Thai girls, GI’s , con men and cops, all of whom blended together in some kind of Hunter S blur of daily madness. I had to slip nervously out of the hotel to the airport, when I got caught in conman pincher movement, catching onto what was happening earlier than my conmen had hoped, and in usual Rod fashion, blew the lid on the whole deal, the corrupt receptionist with the key for the room thief, the, “I just want to practise English’ new best friend, and their copper cover, leaving me with no option but to get the fuck outta there fast, or be just another murder statistic at a time in the days of De Niro’s Taxi Driver saw NYC as the world murder capital, but where infact the murders in Bangkok outnumbered the daily NYC body count , 4 to 1.

So 34 years on, Thailand sure is a different place, for the farung at least. Gays happily live in harmony with the femine ways of the all tolerant, Buddhist Thai’s. Single girls safely travel anywhere. The food is still the best on earth, both in flavour and value. The Thais are still gentle, cheery, and busy. Everything is just so easy, cheap and no fuss in Thailand.

Especially after coming here from the rip-off Europe. As a simple example, in Europe, getting into new SIM card is a dreadful exercise, with a Euro per meg,  or a pound per minute, with guys like Vodaphone so anal, that you can’t  even top up with anything other than a local credit card. In Bangkok, you just hand $10 to the smiling girls at the telco desk, and in 60 seconds  you get ya phone working with 200 minutes of call time, or 200 minutes of internet, regardless of the download amount, and without, as in England’s case, 4 or 5 trips to the Vodaphone outlet, to simply get an email.

A taxi taken miles into Bangkok  from the airport costs $12. Hotel rooms are possible at $10, some bland, some fantastic. The freshest food is always from street vendors, where a dollar a meal will do. You can off course swallow the tourist, I need luxury pill, and pay through the nose, for which Thailand is quite grateful, and the tourist is quite stupid. There is a big difference between a traveller, and a tourist, albeit we often end up face to face. And face to off-yaface. ( Or, as they say in Newport Rhode Island…’shipfaced‘).

Have you ever felt ripped off and burnt by a dentist? There is no need to feel the $pain anymore. My dentist in Port Douglas, went white, when I had the audacity to suggest, he, the consummate professional, ‘was a bit expensive’.

He only made me wait a month for an appointment, then wait an hour reading his Reader Digests, then he got me for about $400 for 35 minutes work and couple of fillings.  Need new crowns? Kiss bye bye to a grand or two per tooth in Australia, as the mainly male dentists stick their fat hairy hands down ya throat, in deep contemplation of the next holiday unit they are about to buy, and compare this, to the delicate, skilled hands, of all female dentists working next to the Bangkok Phuket Hospital, who explain exactly what they are doing, who are cheery, well or better equipped than their Australian counterparts, and who are cheaper by miles> for example $30/filling, or $450 for crown and root.

Fuck the theft that is non Medicare covered medicine in the western world. The West is getting so sick, and so ripped off by the drug and medico industry, that is high time, ah, so to speak, that we all said fuck you to western dentists, and took a holiday every time we needed some major repairs.  Australian health care used to be about 7% of GDP, it’s now topping 10 to 11% and headed for 15%, and at that level, as the West goes down and the East rises up,  the CNN’s ‘road to recovery’ may well end up being as long as the seemingly perma-recessed Japan, after its 80’s splurge. As the west eats its poisoned processed foods, applies its SLF carcinogens in shampoo and shaving cream daily, believes the fluoride lie, inhales the gas-outs, fries in deadly oils, smokes and drinks as though it’s a national pastime, and in so doing,  drives up cancer rates to one in 2, filling the old age centres with decrepit, demented basket cases, all who expect the very best in heath care, after a life of not even giving a shit about diet or exercise. And healthy nutters like me, (bar the odd beach bucket)…end up footing the bill for societies’ irresponsible attitude to their meat carcasses.

Phuket is an amazing new centre of the marine industry, with once DYI, international-only sailors, replaced by fly in, charter a plastic-fantastic,  in a new era of happy-daze sailors, in all their cheque book stupidity.

Rob, hi Rob, my host and buddy in Phuket, first told me about Phuket, when by sheer coincidence, I ran into him and his lovely Michelle at the world’s most remote island atoll, in the centre of the Indian Ocean.

Earlier, 26 years ago infact, my then 31 foot yacht was delayed, having fun in the Percy Islands off Mackay, and our incoming guest, Michelle, impatiently awaiting for us in Mackay, met Rob on the docks, hopped aboard, got married to Rob, at another outragoes raft up, this time at Airlie beach, and they both sailed the world for years, raised two cool kids, and ended up in Phuket, where they had originally suggested I go, 22 years ago. Being that I was headed around the world back them, and as I was halfway across the Indian already, the lure of Phuket had to have been strong, to make me effectively abandon the circumnavigation, and back track, up over the equator to Phuket. We all end up in Phuket at some time or another. Rob now skippers  140 foot of white boat, Michelle teaches, Phuket booms, and life goes on.  aND All because we were late getting to Mackay, 26 years ago. If that’s a ‘sliding door’ experience, it’s a sliding hangar door.

I have a design for an adventure canoe, of the trimaran, Polynesian type, in aluminium, that breaks into 3 parts like a rowing 8, that I was interested in pricing in Asia. My current obsession with long-tail engines, saw me chasing down engineers in the back streets of Phuket,  and tripping offthe Jap rebuilt diesel shops, as well as test driving long-tails off Rawai beach.

Blimey, 100hp of 2000cc ,  Toyota turbo diesel sure shoves some energy into the ocean, and one of these engines on my super narrow, Borneo river exploration canoe, would see me deep into the heart of  Apocalypse Brando darkness, in a flash.

I had already spent few days in HK, feeling like I am at the door to China, but curious as to what’s behind the door. I am also interested in pricing my 33m TRYBRID, as well as my small adventure toy, and had stumbled into a connection with a Billy B, who tells me the Chinese Govt could well be interested in doing something like my TRYBRID>the solar hydrogen, diesel-electric , trimaran thingo. So maybe I will find out what is behind that door soon. I love the Chinese energy…the West has no hope competing with the industriousness, and simple productivity of a Chinaman on a mission. HK is a buzz, and every time I go there, I make a B line for the goldfish markets, to indulge in the fantasy underwater world of the tiny apartment living Chinese, who, like me as a boy, find great serenity and peace, simply gazing into the wonder an interesting fish tank. Call it eccentric, yes, but hey, I like fish tanks.  There is no pet shop centre on earth, to match that in Hong Kong.

Asia is rattling and rolling with Tsunami’s, earthquakes and typhoons, as Gaia looses up a bit, presumably before letting the big tectonic one go. If you can believe the prophesies.

I better jump on my scooter, and go find a room. 135cc of latest Yamaha propelled me with great smoothness and little fuss from one side of Thailand to the other, via Khao Lak, where a police patrol boat still sits a few k inland after the last big wave. It poured as I wove my way through towering limestone mountains, crossing the peninsular. I stopped to watch elephant loggers at work in the mud, and was relieved when a local knew the stop button words for an elephant that came rushing out of the jungle towards me, towing tree. At $5/day for the bike, and maybe $4 in fuel, why the hell would you not tour all of Asia this way> no need for 1100cc of zee BMvee for the slower roads of Asia. The modern step-through, with the engine integral with the gearbox and rear suspension, is a fantastic machine, and it’s odd that whilst these bikes are sold in their millions in Asia,  but they are never released to US, Euro, or Australian buyers anymore. They cost about $1300, and I want one, and infact the design for the 40ft adventure canoe, includes a cargo hold for a motorbike. Fuck the stifling cabins, we will live under a sampan canvas roof, and carry only essentials, namely a bike.

I want a life of longtail motors, super scooters, $1 meals, and a million islands. What I am doing now, is just practising, experimenting. And so far, so good.

Thailand is kinda like Panama, except Thailand has the Pacific for sunset and not sunrise, and it has the Indian, not Atlantic on the other side. It felt kinda’ similar, in concept at least, darting from one side to another. In Panama, you did it in lunatic cabs, in Thailand, I did it as a lunatic on a step-through. Both times I took the transoceanic ride, it poured. So picture the farung on the step-through, at 90k and a million revs, with a $2, see-through wet weather gear a’ flapping, taking GPS directions from his new mobile phone. Kayak’s duffle bag as a back rest. Vietnam rippof North Face day pack in the through part of the step-through. Visibility was as good a mud diving.  The poor Google Earth GPS was suffering,  what being stuffed in my loins, where any self respecting machine would  loose it, with a stream of instructions through the ear plug, whilst driving on straight jungle freeways, that advised me to do a U turn now> turn left in 50m> turn right now> in 500m keep left….all in the space of 10 seconds. A fat drunk wife with an upside down road map would have been more informative.

Nonetheless, I found Koh Samui, and I found my way back to Krabi. All rather wet, I add, but grateful that it was tropical wet, and not European wet, after having fluked 4 months of sunshine in Europe just gone. It takes about a day to get from the northern beaches of Koh Phangan, across the island on rented bike number 2, onto a ferry full of post fullmoon party fuckups, then across Samui on rented bike number 1, to another ferry, this time with locals and trucks at half the price and twice the distance, then from Indian to Pacific oceans… and under a hot shower in a $7 hotel along the muddy river of Krabi. I love Krabi. What a perfect name it has. It’s real. It’s full of transitioning types, but compared to Samui of Phuket, it’s a farung free zone. A farung is a foreigner, and only Thais make the farung word a national icon, being that Thailand, like Turkey recall, is just about the only unconquered country in Asia.

Mind you, when the charming, almost gay king soon dies, it’s a battle between his debauched, belligerent son, his daughter, or his alcoholic, bridge playing, fat ugly wife, the queen. Given the perilous state of Thai politics already, when the king drops off the perch, Thailand’s record as an unconquered nation is up for grabs. But then I recall having the same discussion 22 years ago, and all that has happened since, is more of the same same, namely, some idiot tries to be a smart arse leader, and there is yet another military coup. The military has always run both Indonesia and Thailand, there are only occasional pretenders to the throne here. The US likes it that way.

I kinda like the back beaches of Koh Phangan. It’s the island that is as messy as all the others, but there is a collection of odd Thai freaks and party nutters there, that distinguishes it from the other tourist sell outs. It’s a lot more fun than sexless Sri Lanka. They have made excess into a routine business in Phangan. It reminded me of Bocos Del Toro in the Panamanian Caribbean.

Seeing what has happened to Thailand would make the first banana-boat-from-Bangkok tourists of the 1970s’ weep. I was there back then, but never saw Samui when it was tourist free, in its idyllic, half-Chinese, fishing village state. Mind you, I had a lovely evening eating and dining on powder white sand spit, alongside fishing village kids playing at Ao Chaloklum last night, at the end of the road in Koh Phangan, listening to Bob Marley, but without de herb of de 80’s.

The same death by tourism demise can be seen in Bali. Tourism has just trashed these beautiful spots. It’s a crime. Or, as I asked myself in a more accepting state of mind, was it all worth it, as the great tourism boom of the last 40 years, has also acted and a melting pot, and meeting space for millions upon millions of now more tolerant and understanding human beings. Every cloud, as they say.  And Bali and Thailand played a big part in this creative melting pot.  Still, pity they sold out to the FDA, Visa and Radisson. It happened in my own home town of Port Douglas, once a sleepy fishing town full of nutters, artists and blue singlets. Now it’s home to the Gucci-wanna-bees.  It happened to Byron too… a spot where too many mushies, left handers and kombis, turned into a backpacker blood bath competing with the bid-it-up bourgeois of Whatevergoes Beach. Being a Jan Barham or Mike Berwick mayor of these places is a blood sport.

I also pondered the ruination of the Bali’s and Samui’s, in another light. Have we ruined all the gorgeous and romantic islands on planet earth? Is there anywhere cool, still left… un-fucked-up? I pondered it a while, whilst sittingin the saddle  frozen in a rain storm at 95km/h, concentrating on those little white lines of the legal kind. The answer didn’t take long to precipitate, not unlike my visor. My advantage over the average tourist is the yacht. From the yacht, the world is a way different place. The answer to the question about ‘what is left’ is a massive…. HEAPS LEFT! There are more, beautiful, untouched, still pristine islands and their communities out there, than any land lubber could possibly imagine. Just the secret islands of Pacific Panama are some. So too the beautiful San Blas…my current favourites. Then there are the thousands of islands in the Western Pacific….the list goes on and on. But maybe it’s best we have no list at all, as the best places are best kept as yachty secrets anyway. Tourism sure has made a big mess in the main, name brand islands, but in reality, much more remains authentic, and pristine. But you will never know this, unless you are willing to sail far over that horizon in small boat, and gratefully, 99 out of 100 people just won’t take that trip. Unlike Rob and Michelle Hossack, who would have to be just about the most sail travelled friends I know. What they have seen, you couldn’t fit on a 5 week, non-stop, 3D, Imax. There is only one way to see the world, and it’s on yacht, or some kind boat, with a motorbike ( or 2) onboard.

When I pulled out of Krabi, on the other side of the bay shielded by Phuket, i was surprised to find what i though was a 70k trip, was infact over 200k, to get north and up around the short bridge onto Phuket. That is the area dotted with massive, melted limestone towers, all delicately decorated with drippings of salad. Its a bit of an Asian phenomena, these towers and cliff of once reef, bursting out of the  jungles, and after a few million years of erosion, the melted candle look of the exposed cliffs is only rivaled in erosion spectacle by wind eroded sandstone. Its the dripping with jungle bit that gives the Asian stuff more spectacle than the sandstone rivals of say Sydney’s Broken Bay.

So there was no real issue when the trip went from 70 to 200k, when much of it cut through Phangna, in mile after mile of limestone, James Bond, spectacle.

I rolled into Phuket, poor little Yamaha having been red-lined along at 90 to 100kph, for hours. But the bike seemed to love it, it handled well, it braked like a car crash, was smooth as a BMW, but surprisingly, guzzled 3-4 liters per 100k, compared to 1100cc of my beast of burden BMW, which used 5-6l/100k. I was kinda expecting the step through to only need 2l/100k.

Removing the kayaker’s duffle bag to get at the fuel tank at a hand pump servo, the heavy steel ending on an ‘ocky strap let fly into my face, making a hole in both sides of my chin, which bled like an Othello death. The abuse levelled at the strap would embarrass my late mum. So off I rode, holding the blood flow with lashings of tissue paper ( toilet paper actually), on the hunt for super oxygenator, Hydrogen peroxide, as I wondered nervously if I should be heading to get stiches. It occurred to me, as the blood clotted, that after tens of thousands of mile, through Andes, Alps, desert, snow, and maniac Albanian drivers, that the one and only wound in all that recent risk, was the elasto strap hit I just had. For that, I was surprised and grateful, as anyone on a bike at speed every day, is a potential meat bag.

I drove past a poster for the Phuket Vegetarian festival, where locals slice their cheeks, and insert odd hardware, where one of the better displays, is a garden spade, in one cheek, and out the other. As if that would be hard. It occurred to me, that those dudes trance away, don’t bleed, and recover from DIY face wounds with miraculous speed, with no scar. So whilst driving along in the slow lane, holding the wound, I willed my immune system into miracle mode, sloshed it with peroxide, and sure enough, the inside wound the next morning had closed, sealed over, and no longer looked like an abattoir after a chain saw malfunction. The Biology of Belief. Well worth reading. Technically we are all just an energetic hologram, despite the ignored elephant in the scientific sitting room, and I’m finding it more and more useful, and effective, to zone in on any pain, feel its pain, visualise its golden gig cleansing, and visualise its smoking residue blow away, and for me, it works, kinda like sending in the immune army under subconscious command and control. Ya wont know if I’m bullshitting unless you try it yourself. Or maybe I’m just and old shaman without a clue. Maybe we all are.

After chasing up some more boat building information, and test driving few more long tails in the Krabi, it was time to head north, into what Apocalypse now might see as the heart of darkness, where other see a heart of light.

Enroute to the Thai Laotian border was a night in ChangRai, in an old hotel that had seen better days, and hunkier rack rates.

Everyone sort of walks around in the daze of the colour and lights of the ChangRai night markets. I ran into the French expat drinking team, a sober lot compared to Poms or Aussies, and was given 20 good reasons why French hate France. Having recently shifted my view of France from bad to good, I was harder to convince than some, until the bar bill came, which when compared to Euro prices, was the main reason why I guess, a traveller could hate France.

By some preordained act of God, I drifted out of bed, caught the first rickety bus to some unknown town on the border, hoping to catch the days slow boat down the Mekong. With immaculate conception, I dragged my wheelie bag down to the rivers edge, paid the ferry man, and 150 yards later, was in Laos, where I traded my last $75 Aussie cash for some Kit, or whatever they call it, wandered out of  mudside immigration, and enquired as to when the next boat to Luang Prabang in Laos, leaves. I was then rapidly packed into a 3 wheeler, and asked to walk the plank into 80 starring faces of the back packing rabble, as if I had help up the raising of the said gang plank. Good timing I figured, being 5 minutes later, and It would have been another night on the frontier. And I just fluked it all, from the moment i rolled outta bed, caught the bus, then ferry, all in the nick of unplanned time.

We are way up north here, Mekong west being Thailand, Mekong west being Laos, and China wasn’t too far away. It was here, or just north, that the Air America boys, and the rest of the evil cabal, tried to ‘bomb Laos into the stone age’, and neither the US, or  Australian governments had the dignity to even tell their countrymen, that they were quietly engaged in aerial genocide, the like of which few bombed countries had experienced.

It amazes me, that without declaring war, without raising it in the press or in parliament,  such that western governments could dish out such massive suffering and death to a loose assembly of tribal villages, and then get away with it, is audacious and criminal. To this day, most people in both the US and Australia have no idea what went on in Laos, and how every western man and woman in these countries has blood on their hands,  blood that they had not even noticed.

It wasn’t just a quick incursion…it was year after year of high altitude ( gutless) bombing, using the most evil, and bloody aerial weapon, the cluster bomb. Cluster bomb cases don’t blow up, they open up, and their contents does the destruction, while the casing cops a few dents on landing. Cluster bomb cases are everywhere in Laos. It’s a disgrace. They work like this. Say you are sitting in your bamboo home, with the family. When the casing peels back, the bomblets spray. When the bomb-lets explode, it is as though those in the home are machine gunned with white hot shrapnel, from behind, above, to the left,  and the right..it’s a blood bath….industrial quantities of the stuff. Meanwhile, we all sat at home in the US and Australia, with no idea we were committing such crimes. Not good.

Such is the disgust with which I hold our governments, simply because they can act like this, going to war without even telling, let alone asking us, the nation. All the protestor focus went to Vietnam. Older Lao residents remember the family members lost…the blood, the anger….where the unknown enemy was above the cloud line.

Recall we killed, guess how many Vietnamese? You forget? Try 3 million. And ask yourself, what do you know of those who our mob killed in Laos? No Idea? Join me and the crowd. That in itself, is a disgrace on all of us.

We assure ourselves, that was then, and this is now, and we don’t do war without admitting it anymore. Except, well, except many…like this week, the warfare in Pakistan has hit the streets with more than just suicide bombers, but full blown ‘rebel’ military attacks. We hear more crap about Qaeda this and that, from CNN, but hey, we are secretly bombing the Pakistanis just as we did Laos, and hey, I don’t recall any US or Australian politician either asking us, or admitting giving to their consent to bomb Pakistan….and to bomb it with all the 100 to 1 kill ratios we have come to expect of the US vers the world.

But the Mekong has seen more blood than just cluster bomb remains. Laos has been raided by just about every neighbour for centuries, and the French more recently, for not so good luck. Wherever the French were the colonial rulers, just look at the track record>>>> Just about every one of their colonies fell into war. Nice one France.

The Mekong isn’t like one of those nice Rhineland rivers that slowly navigates its way to sea. The Mekong swirls and rages, with hull ripping rocks ready to wreck its traffic at every turn. So the boats that ply the Mekong, are for a start, super narrow, just to fit, and super shallow draft, just to clear the bottom.

Some of the boats need to do 6 knots before the prop can actually fully engage,  eventually covered by the subtle stern wave that is sucked up to cover the prop blades.

The Mekong ferries have truck engines complete with gearbox and clutch, and they work.  The engines, that is. They have to. If you had a feeble engine, you would never make it upstream with a few hundred tonnes or rice, through the rock strew rapids of the big river rip. The bigger boats are welded together with all the structural rigidity of a jellified condom.

Our journey was over two long days, so the headroom of the first day’s boat was appreciated. The second day, with height enough for a hobit was not so good for the posture.

Outback of the main cabin, somewhere between 2 and 3 bus lengths back, was the engine room, and beyond that, the porch come kitchen. It was here, I  bunkered down atop the cargo, with ‘the lads’, some of whom had hit the BeerLao for morning tea, and others who had lit up, rejoicing the difference between the Lao cops on the east side of the river, and the shoot to kill, Thaksin mob on the west.

It was a dreamy trip, with an overnight midway stopover between Huay Xai  ( Laos)/Chang Kong (Thai) and Luang Prabang  two days down the Mekong.

The overnight stopover in midway point Pak Beng, is a bit of a wild west experience, where I found myself again with one of ‘the lads’, a lad, (a frog) with some Thai language skills, who had worked us right into the main table of Lao whiskey drinking river men, with their fine hospitality and cheeky humour, until several bottles of the shit had hit the bin, there followed by me.

It reminded me of Kuta beach 1974, when I first arrived to be assuaged by offers of kit that would keep Hunter S confused for a week… yabba, whiskey, pot, opiates, and god knows what other local stuff was on offer from anyone capable of standing in the shadows and saying ‘pssst’.  As there was no power other than the odd generator, so too were there lots of shadows. The next day, the recently imported farungs were all headed on their happy hippy, ways into northern Laos, well stocked.

As the river approached Luang Prabang, the limestone karsts and their family of mountains started to get height.  The logging had taken its toll, but still, most of the countryside was unmanaged jungle, and in form typical of planet earth:  where it was too steep to farm, most forest was original and diverse,( albeit missing the odd monster log).

It amazed me how the local boatmen got these stretch long tails up and down the rapid sections, as the chocolate milk turbidity gave no clue as to what sharp rock lurked where, and navigation was all about reading the  water movement. Reef sailors could take a lesson or two from these magicians. Either these river boatmen are amazing experts, or dead lucky.  As the bona fide boatie, I spent the day in constant amazement at matters Mekong.

You could spend weeks plying the length and breadth of Laos in these river boats….and one day, I intend to do just that. My trip to Laos is primarily about reconnaissance, as remissfully, this is my first visit. I’ll be back.

By the time the sun was setting on the fast approaching Luang Prabang, I had already declared cocktail hour.  Accordingly on arrival, I spilled out over the gunwales into the adjoining shore bound boats, with overweight pack in tow and BeerLao in hand, hitting the river bank with a whatever-comes-next, beer buzz. What came next was marvellous. Thank Christ the Unesco Heritage listed Prabang was not bombed into a Neolithic pit.  Luang Prabang kinda like an Ubud-by-the-Mekong, 1970. Resplendent with architecture in the old French colonial style, spiced with 50’s kitsch, and all in an ancient Laotian core, the small riverside town is a welcome relief from the fuck-girl crowd, the mall rats, and the fat and ugly tourist scene that goes into apoplexy if left without air con for 10 minutes. Thank goodness somewhere is not so easy to get to. But getting deeper into the real-deal old Asia is still further upstream. So I hired 100cc and 100k/h of Honda, and headed north, adopting my usual pack-strapping methods, to Honda the mule.

3 hours north of Luang Prabang, there is a bridge over a river at Kwai….no….Khiaw….Nong Khiaw infact. Dark mountains flank all sides of this little wild west port, and with it, a few cheap riverside bungalows, with very happy hippy aromas emanating from their evening hammocks. 20 or 30 stretch river boats hug the shore, and some pretty fit types, lug sacks of this and that up and down the alluvial river banks, the red mud river banks that are the clotted blood of this the Mekong tributary,  the Nam Ou River.Headin north, was a beautiful bike ride, free of retail signage, free of traffic, free of modern housing, free of everything that modern Asia thinks is freedom.

I looked a bit odd, fully kitted on a step-through, but then hey, you should see what a Laotian farmer can strap to step-through.

Further into the original ‘heart of darkness’ was yet ahead, this time aboard and even narrower stretch boat, in with the chooks, and on top of the sacks of fish food. If you really want to step off planet earth for a while, and only have $10/day with which to do it, head to Muang Ngoi Neua. There you can live happily on the river banks, with the local community, not car, bike or tractor in sight. There too, you can stop doing, and start being. How many travellers in 2009, can really say they know or have seen the real Asia? You will find it still in Burma, and here, without the party politics, in northern Laos > a mere ant’s trail away from the Ho Chi Min trail.

The cluster bomb cases are thick on the ground in these parts. But if you trek bit deeper, as did I, you soon find yourself in totally indigenous local villages, where the odd hut will accommodate, so you can write that book, or meditate your way into sphinctorial bliss. I’l be back. Infact, I will be back to get even further north, way up the rivers into the Laos Chinese never-never. The places on earth where you can go into truly original landscapes are few and far between these days, and the Darian pass between Panama and Colombia comes to mind as one, and both there and northern Laos are on my list of, let’s explore destinations. I ain’t dead yet.

There is a sophistication in the rice growing, mud engineering of the Mekong that I truly seek to understand, having spent a few days trying to fathom the irrigation methods, the harvest and storage, and everything in the middle…and it makes modern industrialised farming look truly brutal by comparison. Water everywhere, but few mosquitoes….why?…fish of course. Log dams, seemingly beaver built, but methodical….why?….. to raise water into the irrigation channels. Boys with goggles on, in rice paddocks, off hunting whatever lives in the creeks. Older guys, in army greens, heading off into the forest with rifles across their shoulders.  Maybe to hog tie that US pilot for a few more years? God knows they deserve it.

A couple of nights on these turbid rivers, and the Kundalini in you unwinds like a snake in a prosaic jar. Along with the Andes, Laos is topping my list of charismatic, must re-do, travel spot.

Laos is indeed a photographers dream, and many a photographer were at work there. Many were published here, as well. Laung Prabang is deep in art, books, and matters culture. I could easily live there.

When Laos is maybe one of the world’s poorest countries, it’s sure way wealthier, in well being, than we in the West. You can read in it the faces. The West has no idea how stupefied, tox’d and weakened it has become. The West thinks its money buys wellness and happiness, but the West is deluded to the point of total anaesthesia. The clear expression, the bodies worked as they were designed to, the food clean, unprocessed and alive. The families tight and intact. Communities that still need each other. Housing that costs little, is thermally perfect, and is not used as a wealth barn. Spaces like this make room for laughter, and joy. And if you are wondering why its places like Laos, and San Blas that I so adore, it’s for reasons like these above. Having been part of a nation that participated in the attempted  genocide of this country bears heavily on my heart, as did my time in Vietnam.

From Laos, it was back via the unpronounceable Bangkok airport, for more modern, Brave new World brutalist architecture that is all the fashion in airport design these days. Norman Foster, for his HK airport, should be promoted to chief guards at Guantanamo. Doesn’t anyone stop to actually looks at what these mad men and making? Or is everyone overcome by the sheer, sheerness of the stupid things.  I’m over them.

Then it was time to hit a Hong Kong mattress all night long, and figure out how to get a visa to go to the real China, something I am way late in life doing.

From the rural, quiet old Asia on Friday, to the most berserk consume-a-thon I have ever seen, I had finally hit China. Communism? Yeah right. Its stuff-yaself with shit central. Nothing communist about this. But it’s a fascinating, 30 year phenomena….nothing like it before in the earth’s history. They think Dubai was grand build achievement. But Dubai is a fraction of what happens in China. I have never seen so many 20 something’s. Breed? You fuck me long time.

And from the grand expense ($50) of a flash business hotel here in ShenZen, I got to work preparing power point shit for the TRYBRID curious Chinese.

If the TRYBRID idea takes off in China, my life may well take a fast wild ride. Just like China itself.

see why i love Laos?

any photographer is good in Laos..although its takes an eye, not a camera…

tourism marketing Laos..where the bloody hell are you?

cluster bomb casings..obsenity in metal..shame on us

hit the road on ya Hardly Davisdon.

wwdouble you DUBAI.

It’s a phenomenon of the times. It’s extraordinary in the extremes of all that is good, and all that is bad.

It’s Dubai, or more accurately, it’s the UAE.  40C to 50C of camel depressing desert, which back in the ‘60s, hosted a few Arabs in boats, when up from the depths came a bubbling crude. Oil that is. Dubai gold. Or Abu Dhabi gold, at least. Dubai, Abu Dhabi’s  cousin state, seemed to borrow most of its neighbour’s oil doe. And when the Saudi’s had to be called in for a loan here and there, the Saudi’s added a few Sharia law conditions to the loan. UAE had two advantages, it was a British protectorate, not another state of the oil nazi US, and like Holland, Dubai, because of its (up a creek) trading location like the Dutch Rotterdam, became a trader not a warlord. Traders soon learn that multilingual, culturally tolerant behaviour is better business than sticking it to your neighbour ( or gassing them) like Sad and dead Hussein. Accordingly, in the UAE, there are about 120,000 expat poms, and just over 20,000 expat Aussies, and gratefully, fuc all Yanks.businessmen. Aussies are the preferred nationality to manage the construction industry, with Poms being the wanking bankers ( with many a deal secured and now torched outta London). It’s kinda fun that it’s us Aussies who are the main managing ‘doers’ of Dubai, as it is the world’s best construction and development training ground. As it is hard to get a regular mortgage in the UAE as a foreigner, much property is secured overseas, meaning much of the pain of the speculative bubble burst, bleeds the already anal haemorrhaging, and financially gluttonous England.

But don’t live with ya girlfriend, or you’ll get deported, to the airport (or the jail). Don’t get pregnant if you get raped, as you go to jail for adultery along with the baby. Don’t bounce a cheque, or, like in middle age Europe,  you go to debtor’s prison. When the boom collapsed, it seems the best option for many broke expats was to simply dump the new BMW, and head for the airport, as a first preference over bouncing cheque. In the streets below where I stayed, the dust encrusted evidence was everywhere, one guy didn’t even close the rag top to his  new BMW sports car, leaving now dust covered groceries on the front seat before doing a runner. The UAE was a late starter in the GFC, but when it went, it went over like a barrel of money at Niagara. Don’t be caught, if ya gay, being the ‘givee’. The ‘givee’ goes to jail, the ‘giver’ walks. With condoms being the biggest selling item in the all male Pakistani workers camp, ya gotta wonder what goes on at night, nonetheless.

As a graduate of a faculty of architecture, with a builder’s twist, to me, Dubai is the most amazing professional gawk of a lifetime.

Where we may be used to seeing a paddock of demonstration, project homes, Dubai is similar, except the homes come in a range of  60 storey towers, city wide. If you are ever in the market for a 40 to 140 storey tower, come shop at Dubai. At 98OM high, like a fairy castle stalactite, the tallest thing on earth will be opened in a month or two in Dubai. Go stick it, KL. And it comes alongside the hotel with the mostest, and it’s lapped by the fountain with water jets that would give you an enema through your cranium, in Walt Disney performing bursts, to acres of orchestral music, with hundreds of these jet bursts, maybe 15 storeys high. Beat that. Oh…I forgot, it has the world’s biggest luxury goods Dubai Mall alongside it too. If you ever wondered how to define every luxury retailer on earth, read the Dubai Mall directory.

There’s a fish tank in the new Dubai Mall, with wall of glass maybe 12m high, (god knows how thick is the seem less glass), some 40m across. If they burst that one, there would be more than one type of shark species swimming around Armani.

You can learn to ski in Dubai. In between shopping. Ice skate a tad in another mall. Feed the sharks in another. Or the seals. Take ya pick. Go could get some groceries, have a scuba dive, a snow ski, an ice skate, and be back home by lunch. Why the hell not.

But during Ramadan, don’t eat or drink in public, or at home for that matter, between dusk and dawn. But at 45C, a glass of water is sometimes an issue.  So don’t get caught sipping a water bottle. Or it’s back to jail. Such things don’t really enhance tourism prospects for all the acres of new hotels. Restaurateurs don’t do so well in Ramadan September, and it’s just as well they eat a lot of dates in Dubai, as a pig-out on dusk, with nothing in-between, must create a nice log jam on the digestive highway. But Dubai has got the traffic log jam issue well in the solution gun sights, building roads with more lanes that the Santa Monica freeway, for cars that, well don’t exist, or are dumped in tower block car parks. We’re ‘on a road to nowhere” comes to mind, especially viewing the freeway bridges that just end, in mid air, everywhere.

Power is a bit of a problem, but 25c/litre diesel aint, so half the new buildings just generate their own. Shit trucks line up for miles, well full of it, waiting to do a dump at the shit dump yard. Pipes are a bit behind schedule. Just as well for the dates again.

De main man is Mo, Sheik Mohamed, His Royal Highness, a guy who sure was in the right place at the right time, after his dad was just tooling around with camels and boats, till some bubbling black shit gurgled up a few years ago. From camel pets, to the biggest horse stable gig on earth. Add the biggest white boat on earth. Sheik Mo is indeed well loved locally, and with free heath cover, no tax, and flash shit everywhere, he has got a good track record, on the subject of benevolent dictatorship. It’s only us expats who seem to have an issue with Sharia law, and hey, who’s to say pashing pommes fucking on the beach pissed, is pretty anyway.

Sheik Mo’s mota, his 140m white boat mota, looked a treat framed between a few of his towers, out Jim’s window.  The boat, according to our magazine shots, inside at least, is more colourful that a hippy holiday in India. He da man. He da Mo.

Da Main Man just opened up a new Metro when I arrived, and for Ramadan Eid-end, every man and his dog was riding it. Real men ride up front. There’s no driver anyway, so ya might as well join the hordes of Paki’s gawking down the tracks through the front window, as the new trains rip around Dubai sans driver like an airport shuffle on ‘roids.

And its three cheers and holy shit for me mates Gerard, Jono and soon Jim, who as COO’s or CEOs, or da big boss men, have projects on between them, that would rival all the big building projects in Aus, between just two of ‘em.

Their projects come in batches of 40’s, 60’s and 80 storeys….. that’s tower blocks…. lots of them, and flash ones bro.

We all go oou ah when Junipers tops of a big’n in the Gold coast, but in Dubai, Shaun’s tower would be lost in the crowd. Fuck me, the number and height of the towers is beyond comprehension. Some, a handful , are indeed architectural masterpieces, lost sadly in the overindulgence. Many are impractical, but spectacular sculptures, where it’s obvious that the architect who go the job, was the one who got the biggest ka-pow effect in the unveiling before de man. De Mo, oftentimes.

The law to support this madness was a bit lagging. For example, you could line up all night, to buy a home unit, and if you got to the head of the cue early, you could zip to the end of the cue, and on sell immediately, pocket 15%, and unlike Aus, you pocketed the cash earn before the building even began, with no tax payable. This mania became infectious, with the average unit trading hands 7 times, before it got built. When the music stopped, (as the Greenspan trap snapped close with bye-bye Lehmans) the guy left holding the title to the unit was well fucked, as prices halved, and halved again, leaving acres of newly opening buildings, with no one home. They say they need several million more inhabitants, simply to use up the commercial space under construction now. But unlike Aus 1990, the developers have got most of the doe, bar the last 25%, there is no 19%PA debt to banks, the oil is a happy $70 barrel, and pumping away in the squillions, so there may be a lot of empty buildings and burnt London property backed mortgages, but De Man, and his Sheiks ain’t too fazed. They just need to think about a 10 pound pom immigration gig. If the poms can cope with 45C.

Many thanks to the hospitality of Jim Spencer, on ya Jim. Ya view rocks. Boats R US. Nothing like waking up to a clearing in the dust, 25 stories up, looking across Dubai Marina, through the world’s fastest and biggest growth of reso’ towers in human history.

And also to Jon Lyle, another of the sheik’s men in Abu Dhabi, on ya Jono….and also Gerard Carrollll> holy shit, no one will ever be able to even compete with your resumes, after your gigs go pictorial. We all once worked together, and went to Uni closely, and we continue to drink together.Even somehow through Ramadan. But don’t tell anyone.  Besides, its water of course.  After dusk.  And not until dawn.

It could only be done with armies of Paki’s, Indians, the odd Chinese crew, some Afghani’s and infact anyone who wants to quadruple their homeland pay, work in 45C heat, for less than a $grand a month.  Philipinos are smarter, they do food and beverage indoors. The local Emirates sure need to be tolerant of immigrants, as they seem outnumbered 9 to one in most places. But in their dish dash, immaculate white sheets and headdress, with kids paternally on their arm, the local Emirate lads sure know how to style it. Their backyard BBQ’s fill their driveways with Bentleys and half million dollar Merc’s, and when ya mate upstages you with a deadly, 6 cubic litre, US pick up, the mate with the Mack truck-pic up, upstages them all. In the driveway. Time to kill another sheep or two. Pity about no beer but.

With the US pumping arms and cash into the Rothchild’s, pseudo Babylonian state of Israel (”Is’  in Israel for Isis, “Ra” for the sun god, and ‘El’ for god or Elohim), and in the process arming the  Zionist maniacs with nuclear weaponry, it seems beyond belief that the west would be so audacious and hypocritical as to want to obliterate Iran for a possible nuclear program of their own. Even after Iraq and smack war Afghanistan, 70% of recently polled Yanks, are cool to attack Iran. What the?   If Iran is attacked, Dubai, just across the bay, could be bomb dust in minutes. Russians would love it, as the subsequent middle east oil blockages would then make their oil trice as valuable, and the only stock available, and they would be off on their dash to control central Asian hydrocarbons. So Russia is busy arming Iran, as the US pays $1600PA to every man, woman and child in Israel (whilst denying their own community health care).

The US embargo on Iran sure looks like bullshit when you see the millions of tonnes of goods being shipped there in Dhows from the Dubai creek. There is no where on earth like the middle east when it comes to fucked up, deceptive foreign intervention. If the western populations all could see what was going on here, without the lies of the western media, it would be shocked. But hey, Israel can kill 100 Palestinians for every one Israeli killed just last Christmas, yet the West, via CNN, see Israel as victims. The new big game, is who, of Russia, China or the US, controls the last big oil deposits on earth, in Central Asia. The US aint in Afghanistan to chase Bin Laden, no more than it is in Colombia to chase FARC , that’s just a smoke screen for the mums and dads back home…. it’s the oil in Venezuela  and Central Asia they want.

I had a week in Dubai, after a few fab weeks demobilizing in Holland near De Hague, with many loving thanks to Anoesjka and her family, who lent me a homely home unit behind the dunes. Holland is my favourite European country, the Dutch are way cool. The bike is soon in a container to Sydney ex Rotterdam, for all of $700, scrubbed for a day, with wire tooth brushes inside and out, ready for Australian Quarantine. It rained the day after I demounted, after almost 4 months of beautiful warm sunny European memory behind me, so I curled up and enjoyed the TV with added delight, cancelling the day entirely. I was sad to leave Europe, as Europe treated me to rich experience after rich experience, in mile after mile of breathtaking bike touring. You just can’t replicate the richness of travel, when you go in a glass and steel box called a car. Bike touring is living it, fully engaged.

Before I left Europe, I rode the length and breadth of Germany and Holland, meeting with the brilliant engineers and manufacturers of fuel cells, hydrogen steam reformers, and electric marine propulsion systems, who hopefully one day will be part of the fabulous www.trybrid.org project, to be the first to circumnavigate the world in 80 barrels. The Germans and Dutch are to my mind the world’s best and most innovative engineers, and to be hosted on engineering tours, by the best and brightest of the new energy innovators, was a special treat, and a great education. I think now, the final scheme for TRYBRID is taking shape, and conceptually, there is nothing like it, on earth. Maybe, just maybe, with possible partners like the crew behind the Masdar super green city in Dubai, TRYBRID will one day dock in Thames, as the guys conceiving and now starting this Masdar city, have conceived a renewable, self contained, Forster planned masterpiece, the likes of which has no competitor in green credentials , on this planet. May they, and TRYBRID, succeed. May Dubai recover, and survive the US’s seemingly evil intentions for Iran, a few miles across the bay from Dubai. Many thanks to all my hosts and friends over the last month. You rock. Ramadan’s month long fast and contemplations ended with a big splash out party as I left Dubai for Hong Kong.

Thanks also to the gorgeous Georgeous Stevens, and her pals from Brighton, with who I spent a last weekend in Brighton, learning more about the cutting edge of raw foodie culture and farming, with spiritually alive and vibrant approach, with clarity that I have never before experienced. You guys are onto something very special in Brighton. Thankyou Georgeous for your hospitality.  May Moonbean your rabbit be over the moon.

What a memory it left me. Next Asia.

So, what else can you find in the world, since the Berlin wall came down?

They say you can island hop from Greece to Turkey. So I caught the ferry from Mykonos to Samos, a Greek island, just 3k from Turkey. The Greeks have virtual ocean liners for ferries, most ‘70’s relics, from days before $50 international flights. I was grateful to be 4 stories up, and not on the foredeck of a yacht, as the winds that hammered the Med where beyond ferocious. It was enough wind to blow you off your feet, a gale bordering on a sunny cyclone. And it wouldn’t let up for days. Anything not pegged down, was gone.

Having run a shipping line ina previous life, or so I am told, I found myself pacing around  the many decks of the ferry, as though I was keeping an eye on the business. Mind you, my only business was buying the odd toasted sandwich, but that didn’t stop my incessant watch of docking precision, heal angles, and route planning. I should have just relaxed, like the hundreds of bodies strewn around the Borat decorated lounges and cafeterias, throughout the 5 ferry crossing that I made from Italy to Greece.

Ferrying punters just aint what is used to be,  before Ryan Air. Mind you, the Greeks have no shortage of tonnage, nor any lack of expert captains who can back 100,000 tonnes in 45 knot crosswinds, as though they were parking a Smart car. I was impressed. Reversing, spinning turns, in tight harbours, car ramps down and ready, all without a tug boats in sight. It would give any Australian harbour master’s health and safety officer, an epileptic seizure.

Ever since Onassis scored the US half the US’s WW2 Liberty ships for a dime, in a dirty deal with JKF’s dad Jack, (in exchange for funding sonny boy John into the presidency), the Greeks have ruled the waves. They also ruled US politics for a while, but got shitty with JFK, for welching on the deal, by leaving the mafia’s gambling thugs to get mashed in the Bay of Pigs?/ Castro fiasco,  such that when JKF would  not save their arse, so Onassis/CIA had John shot (with one bullet that did 3 U turns in flight), and then, in traditional mafia protocol,  Onassis stole the missus Jackie. Os so the famous Gemstone files revealed. And the ship is named in memory of the sibling.

But back to getting to Turkey. Trains were uncool ever since Midnight Express.

So ferry it had to be. I arrived at Samos on dusk , on a Saturday evening.

There I was told , the next ferry to Turkey, was on the following Friday. My self-sic sense of humour took over, as it was either cry, or more fun, laugh. And have a beer. I was then told there was no camping site on Samos, so , as  twilight became dark, I had to find a beach somewhere bike-able, and crash.

Banging pegs into rocky Greek beaches, at night, is only possible after several beers.

The next morning, below a quaint whitewashed Greek church kinda thing, I set to sea a fluffy turd, ate some muesli, and went ferry hunting. By 9.30, I was on yet another steel block of flats, heading to Chios, an island famous for not much, other that growing and making the gum in chewing gum. The Turks had routinely massacred Greeks, but because the Turks warring leader fancied chewing gum, the Chios mob had been spared the massacre bestowed on their neighbours, getting themselves out of an otherwise sticky situation. In Chios, for $100, you could catch a shitty ferry to Turkey just 5 k away,  compared to 250k, for half that price,  for intra Greek run. It seems Greeks and Turks have ferry protocol issues.

Turkey ain’t a part of the EU, and like Thailand, is one of the few countries on earth,  that has never have been overrun by foreigners, including Brussels based bureaucrats. So on arrival, they made me pay a $30 visa fee.

I thought Turks now liked Australians, now that we realised that massacring each other at Gallipoli was all a big mistake, and we really didn’t mean it. Meanwhile, idiot patriots revere crazed mass murderer , Winston Churchill, who’s stupid, arm chair idea, Gallipoli was in the first place.

I tried to declare the bike papers to one of the hoards of officers at the dockside customs and immigration,  and in the end, gave up and just rode down the line of trucks awaiting inspection, and was on the streets of Cesme, bugger the customs, by just gliding through the border gates like royalty.

Cesme was seemingly the Turk’s Costa del Sol , a cheap , packages, Spanish equivalent, complete with endless ice cream sales, miles of tacky town house developments, and  nowhere to camp. On the directions of locals,  I was sent to chaos beach, where it seemed anyone was allowed anywhere to camp, and along with piles or rubbish, and a few hundred late Sunday afternoon beach goers, I picked a pitch. My protocol leaves actually erecting the tent at dusk, not before hand, and as my tent erects itself like a 13 year old boys wet dream, its not big deal making home in seconds. I ate a meal on the tables set up on the beach, and marvelled at the fact that the Aussie dollar has now sunk to the level of being of rough par with Turkey. To everywhere else in Western Europe, we have the spending power of Mexicans.

The guys with the AK47s seemed to think it was OK to camp. The dog walker was a bit alarmed that anyone dared to camp in thieving Turkey, but spared me a friendly hour of Turkish route suggestions. I’m kinda glad to be a silverback, as camping at any other age or by any other sexuality here, might be unwise.

But it wasn’t unwise, it was fun, and  good nights sleep on the edge of the sea, for free. I thought to myself, after years of sleeping in a house, that the fear of the sleeping boogie man, is a load of shit. The sleep bogie man, creates housing, the world around, as we know it. We should all just sleep on the nearest beach more often.

Mu first full day in Turkey was a laugh. And not being on an island, and being free to ride, I made like the dance song, to , ‘ride, ride…keep on riding, ride”.

It was a new experience to have no road map, no GPS, no Lonely Planet, nothing. Just a vague tourist map. Turkish signs , written it what might as well be yiddish, added spice. So fuck it, loosen up, get ready to get lost, and just ride. The GPS , sans maps, told me which was  north, and what was water, and what was land. That was ample. All I needed to know, was where the wet bit was.

So the first round-about threw me onto an expressway through 70k of country that would challenge the hardiest, dirt eating goat.  Wind turbines made up for agricultural handicap, and in no time, i was in a modern, multistorey city called Isnir, drinking chi, and eating some kinda Turkish sweet thing, of unknown make and model, like the dozens of new Turkish  foods, where I had no idea what they were made off. Little kinda roll things with peppers erect from each end, and weird hot drinks, which seemed to me like simple tea. Turkey is clearly the intertidal zone between the west, and middle east.  If a bloke called Constantine could re-dit the Jesus/Jewish gig, and modify ‘pagan’ sun worship into a religion that has held the world in a ‘Christian’ mind prison for 2000 years, all outta Istanbul, well, he’s a master bullshiter, in fact, he’s a master ‘Ist’-and-bullshitter’…. so Turks aint stupid. Unlike me. The Turks have a Machu Pichu kinda’ place, where Zeus and the rest of the stella gods were worshipped, just like in Machu PIchu, for 3000 plus years, through Hellenic, Turk and Roman regimes, and by fluke I found myself there, near Bergama, giving some Rod tips to the gods, ancestors and a bunch of incarnate ‘hang arounds’, as I’m want to do. My message is pretty simple, it simply says, ‘ Spirits,get ya shit together, get ready to party, its almost 2012, cycle shift time again.”  It’s hardly a detailed message,  but hey, it’s enough. After paying regards to Zeus, I pondered the 3000 years of Draco rule, where one mob after another ruled half the civilised world from this Bergama hill,  deploying the usual tricks, of hiding the real cosmic truths, enslaving the masses below, and guarding  the palace and their inner core mates, with fortress positioning and deadly armoury. Nothing changes.

Retuning from the mount like Moses with flat tire, I found a gas station to add 20psi to the rear knobbly. I  ordered a meal with me macho Muslim, all male mates, and indulged in my first  real Turkish barber experience, for one of those neo throat cutting shaves, in full traditional glory.  Now, given the gods, the back tire, and the facial hair where all in alignment, it was time to hit the coast again. This time, camp was to be  a beachside restaurant, where the deal was simple: eat here, and camping is free. Some  amused locals, one an economics grad with no job,( like most 2009 graduates), bought me a beer, as we sat in the dried sea weed, and discussed the basic similarities of all human plight,  despite the tower of Babel hurdles, whilst getting mildly pissed. The sun went down, along with another goat’s cheese salad, and it was another mad day on the road, to a place, where even now, as I write. here on location, I can’t remember the name. The Beatles are right… we are everywhere and nowhere baby.

You have some good days, and some fucking hardcore days,  especially when you a  fulltime traveller. Today , or the last 24 hours was rough. Turkey deserves all the shit it wears, from the nightmare tale told to the world in the cult film, Midnight Express. My tale gets a bit darker here. The twee Turk, who tried to practice his Borat English on me, on my first night, complained of the ‘undeserved’ reputation that the horror on film that  Midnight Express brought to Turkey. Fuck it… the truth hurts?

The day for me had a saddening and tough interlude. For a person like me, with maybe a deeper insight into what some call ‘conspiratorial”, the whole Gallipoli gig, is nothing more than a sickening piece of history, so badly understood, that grieving relatives have grave stones erected, stating, here lies a guy who was glad to die for his country. Glad to die? Yeah right, sure dad. I’m lying here, half my leg blown off, in the blazing sun, lead flying everywhere, in excruciating agony, as death approaches where medics fear to tread, I’m just 20 years old, and you fuckas, after I die in this miserable field of thorns , reckon I’m ‘glad’ to die for my country?

There is a plaque quoting the arch Iluminati tool Churchill, where he says the Turks will fall apart with a good army of 50,000 men and a few ships. One million men fought each other at Gallipoli. 250,000 of them died there. Churchill, you mate, are an evil, agent of hell, in there with arch Satanists, Kissinger and Hitler.

ANZAC cove, like many who visited it, with any degree of historical understanding, are almost brought to tears. It’s a good thing, about Australians, that masses of us   , make bus load trips to Gallipoli, every single day. They are not there for the trinkets and ice creams. There are none. ANZAC cove is a small beach, with a small headland. There are beaches just 900 m north or south, without imposing cliffs behind. If you were to make a beach assault, and had any sense of practicality about it, you would not do it at ANZAC cove. Curse you, may your souls rot in karmic demise, you British officers who had the stupidity to slaughter ANZACs with you insane geographical planning.

The chill sets in against the background of any typical summers day at ANZAC cove, as the beach is serene, coloured into the typical Mediterranean azure of the water…its a pretty little beach. The Gallipoli penninsular, is a gentle place, with charmed and lush farming, back from the beaches. They grow sunflowers there these days. My timing saw the sunflowers in wilt, with thousands of flower heads drooped as in prayer, as they shed there colour, petals, and life… as some sort, to me at least, of reminder of what happened there. Dozens of memorials, tributes and graveyards line the shores of Churchill’s little Turkish adventure.

What is it with the world, that sees millions of Australians relieved and sickened by the long overdue apology to the Aboriginals, yet no one, not a soul, even thinks to have the Australian and British Government apologise for massacring so many young Australian men, in pursuit of British Imperialism, to satisfy  Churchill’s lust for power and ownership of the Ottoman Empire. War history is a disgrace. Lest we forget? Lest we forget the truth…and the truth is, Australians should never have been at Gallippoli, no more than we should NOT be in Afganistan now, fighting a war, I can guarantee, on a wager of my right arm, that we will leave in defeat, as all before, after, as in the Golden Triangle precedent,, facilitating the world’s biggest and most blatent export of heroin, in world history. Stupidity beyond imagination? No, just more of the same, and whilst we never learn from history, we condemn more to needless death. Assault after assault was simply mown down by machine gun fire, and not to die instantly, but to be left, between the lines, with no morphine, no one to hold that fading hand, just a pitiful, agonising death, sometimes over days, in  a welter of dying mates.

I left Gallipoli, saddened and upset.

I was heading for Istanbul, 13 million Turks. Turkey is a fucking mess. It’s run by fundamentalist right wing Muslims. Making women wear neck to knee, with headdress, just to take a summers’ holiday. New money ( for some) is manifest in state, not local government  planning (  Turkish local government is a bureaucracy) ( like Melchert running Douglas?)…and the urban landscape of Turkey is a pile of rubble and rubbish interspersed with 4 to 5 storey , block housing, and for the ‘soma’ fed rich, the same thing in 3 storey, beachside town house developments. 80 million Turks means houses are no more, just mile after agonising mile of new developments.

I say it sucks, and Turks, wake up.

As for the natural beauty of Turkey, well, I ain’t seen anything worse in  Europe, put it that way.

So late in the afternoon, after taking a turnoff to Istanbul, i just said, fuck it, and as soon as I found a gap in the expressway guard rails, I did a U turn, and headed east back to Greece. I was not going to put up with life threatening drivers, and 13 million more Turks showing me how to ruin a great heritage with new found, debt driven money, simply because they too were succours for Greenspan’s  arch evil plan, to bury the world in debt so his immediate predecessors could get control, via weakened banks and governments, of world finance. Sorry Turkey, you are too ugly, too stupid, and I am too aware and awake, to sympathise with your noveau money stupidity. I’m leaving now. Or so I thought.

At the border, I was detained for nearly 24 hours. Why? Because the idiot customs, 3 days before at Cesme, had waved me through their gates without stamping my bike customs bit on the passport. Bad luck for me, as the omission had nothing to do with me, but was a failure of the Turkish bureaucracy. I arrived at the Greek border at dusk, and was shafted from one officer to another, I was stamped in, stamped out, and stamped in again. This went on as in true Midnight Express style,  where no one actually gave a shit about the dozens of detention rights they were ignoring, as all that mattered for the greasy Muslim career officers, was insuring they kept their noses clean.

I was forced back into the bleak, dry nowhere-ville of Turkey hinterland,(Ipsala) to a hotel designed and run by Borat, where,  I was ripped off, and fucked over. When i turned up for ‘breakfast’ the Borat clones showed me into a empty, purple decorated restaurant, with 400 seats but just one client,  me, and  then smiled as they proudly waved their hands over the lone table with today’s breakfast buffet, comprising some tomatoes, olives and goat fuckers cheese. So I took out my own Muesli, and asked for a bowl, by showing the stupid fuckas, the picture on the front on the pack, where this thing called a bowl was needed. It was as though I had asked for a space ship. The idiots had no idea what a bowl was, despite the picture, until I marched them into the kitchen, found a bowl amongst the rubble, and gave them a demonstration, of how, incredible as it may seem, you actually put this stuff called cereal in a bowl , and eat it. Without adding fucking olives.

The 300 room ‘hotel’ must have had 20 guests at max. Its lift only went 1 floor, despite being 5 stories high, built in the middle of fucking nowhere. The architects had a few mistakes, like beams below head high on main stairs, and power points all located behind joinery. TV was Turkish game show sing-a-longs, interspersed with ads for toxic household chemicals. Get me fucking out of here!!!

But again, no such luck.

By late afternoon, back at  Turkish border post,  hammered by thousands Turks in Mercs, heading back to Deutschland, I finally lost it. After being fucked around by one blame shifting officer after another,  the time had come to forget the obliging smile, and walk straight into the commanding officer’s grand office, demanding , as I held my wrists together as if cuffed, that they either arrest me here and now, as I was calling my embassy, or, let me fucking free, now!

The big hissy, after 24 hours of shit, was a big gamble. I had seen Midnight Express.

But fuck it, as least a bed in jail was free. My commotion set in train a  chook slaughter yard of headless blood spurting, as one officer after another started yelling at each other, until finally, they realised it was their problem, not mine, and if they detained me any longer, their problem will be a lot bigger.

‘Good bye Mr Davis’, was their parting words as my passport and papers were handed back.  Twisting the throttle to max, 10m out of the Turkish gates, I yelled a few Turkish bye byes and fuc offs, that they could have heard in Istanbul. My advise?… fuck going to Turkey, there are plenty of other places with goat fucking topography and shit food to choose from aside of Turkey. Whoever named the place Turkey, got it in one.

Its’ been a few days now, since I left Turkey, and I feel kinda bad about dumping on the poor Turks as much as I did. I hadn’t yet seen Albania. In Turkey, when I told a guy I was going to Albania next, he looked at me sideways, and said, “Are you sure?”.

The Turks, well, the people themselves are kinda cool, even the dicwits at the border were at least friendly, they even got me tea. Its the governments, as always, that ruin societies. Drive anywhere in Turkey, and you will see statue after statue, to some bayonet wielding mob, hacking into another. This is a bad sign, when it comes to a society. The border post had a quote on the wall, from the legendary, but duplicitous and evil tyrant Ataturk, ‘Peace at home, Peace in the world’…yeah, right mate, this from the super warring Turkish leader, with his own cruel little empire, once called Ottoman. At-a-boy, At-a-Turk. What a hypocrite. Gallipoli proved how good Turks are at war, remember?…they won.

I had a two night interlude camping on the nice beaches in northern Greece, SE of Thessalonica on the peninsular around Sithonia, where Greek retirees had built themselves a new, tacky, community along some sheltered bays and beaches. With increasingly arsey knack, with my new, don’t pay approach to accommodation, I just pitched my tent on the pine needles just back from the best beach location in the area, and, as it always true, the best things in life, and real estate, are free.

It was a big ride to Albania, not well helped by little sleep, after reading Ickes gob smacking recent additions to the already massive revelations about the grand lie known as 911.

It is beyond belief, the extent of the 911 lie,  it’s contradictions and outright bullshit .

What amazes me, is that most of the Western world swallowed the bullshit, and continue to believe the 911 by Bin Laden myth.

It will one day, go down in history, as the greatest ever fraud committed in the 20^th century. If you still believe Muslim terrorists where behind 911, after all has since been revealed, you are sadly, in a bit of information stupor, and I suggest you take 30 minutes out, to read the net, watch a DVD, or glance one of a dozen books on the subject. If you still believe all FOX has to say, just stick with games shows and eat ya fluoride tablets. There’s fading hope for you.

The EU must have dumped a massive, build now, pay ( the toll) later deal on Greece, and in a country where the roads are falling apart, they have built an expressway from east to west that has to be ridden to be believed, as never, anywhere on earth, have I seen such a, who-gives-a-shit attitude to civil engineering cost. Where maybe cut and fill might have breeched some of the valleys, the new EU road has mile after mile of staggeringly high bridges, and enough tunnels to outdo 50 years of Italian digging effort.  At 130k/h  across sweeping bridges, 400m up in the air, or roaring down mile after mile of through mountain tunnels, on a road almost to myself, for almost 300k, was something else.

The toll booths were still under construction. Some infrastructure bankers must have lit a few cigars, and popped a few corks when the ink dried in this deal. How absurd, to leave community roads in squalor, whilst building unused ‘roads to nowhere’ like the A2 in Greece. No wonder the EU is crushing so many in taxation.

But 911 and Greek autostradas, aside, I was, later in the day, in for yet a another shock,  on arriving in Albania.

The line up of cars on the Greek side of the border post , to clear police and customs was 4 hours long, in the hot sun. So much for the seem-less EU border idea.

With sly tactics, I was through the mile long cue in 30 minutes, simply by weaving the Beemer to the head of the car cue, and then de-helmuting, and sitting in the gutter looking destitute, whilst making  jokes with the drivers of the very front cars, such that they insisted I go first.

The Greeks side of the border was a mess. The Albanian side was a pigsty. Lonely Planet described the southern most town of Albania, Sarande, as Albania’s cutest seaside town. If Sarande is their cutest, then I would hate to see their ugliest: Beirut after a good shelling looks tidier than Sarande.  Lonely Planet, in there forever attempt, to be upbeat, have at times, lost it. When the travel hippies who founded Lonely Planet, sold out for $180million dollars, there was a message in there, for us the readers.

The first thing you notice when driving into Albania, are hundreds of concrete dome shaped things in paddocks everywhere. On closer inspection, they are bunkers,  bunkers that an atomic bomb wouldn’t worry.  700 thousands of them. For 3.5M Albanians. What kind of fucked up, paranoid society could have lived in such fear, that they built these gun shoot bunkers literally everywhere? The 50 million killed in the name of a sharing caring idea called communism, is clearly something I am yet to come to terms with. I’m told the communist leader insisted the enginner who designed the things, sit inside one, as a series of tanks shelled and attacked him. He walked out fine, just a bit shell shocked for the rest of his life.

Many Albanians, without no such thing as a car, lost their virginity in one of these bunkers.

The roads and environment leading to the Albania coast have to be seen to be believed. I thought Bolivian infrastructure was on the edge of rabid. Albania, or my first impression at least, made me think of Bolivia instantly. But it’s a different gig. Developers have been given a shit load of money here, and not an ounce of social conscious, and they have fucked the place overnight.  I had hoped for some old, real Europe, with donkeys and stone cottages. There still are cows and rancid horses grazing the garbage bins on the roads, but the stone cottages are now mere developer’s rubble, here in Sarande.  The Rubble from the building boom lines the road into the tourist ‘mecca’, that these idiots are trying to create, in mile after mile of truck dumps, interspersed with the odd bit of putrid garbage. Half built 6 storey ghettos, surrounded their neighbours in dust and rubbish,   and make up every third building, all frozen in half built states, now the Greenspan trap has snapped across the world’s fingers. The territory is mountainous and bleak to start with, a sort of biologically challenged area at the best of times, but after the addition of an influx of unconstrained earth moving savages, the environment has gone from bleak to depressing. It took centuries of previous conquerors to largely ruin dry Europe, but in the last 20 years, with bulldozers and excavators, the current generation has done more damage than a millennia of Romans and Ottomans. It’s an environmental catastrophe of massive proportions.

But all through this, there are dozens of new Mercs and Range Rovers, limping through the pot holes and rubble. I almost jumped of my bike in yet another log jammed, mud and rubble traffic jam and went up to the dickhead in the new black Ranger Rover in front of me, to say, ‘mate, why the fuck would you both buying and expensive  limo like this Ranger Rover, when you are living in a cack hole of this proportion?’ What is the point of such blatant luxury, if no one gives a shit about the ‘us’ part of living, to the point where the place is a pigsty full of faeces besmeared pearls? I obviously had some lessons to learn about the post commo, community consciousness.

I rode into the sunset through mile after mile of dry rocky, beachless coastline until I finally found a single beach, that is again, looked like a rock pile, meets quarry, with its beach decorated  with up-ended bunkers, makeshift discos , and a million holiday makers, and an odd camper. I found a spot under some olive trees, bought a beer, pitched my tent, and when I look out my torch, I noticed that what I thought was a large rag hanging in the tree behind my tent, was in fact a rancid, drying goat skin carcass. Turkey is all of a sudden looking quite civilised.

It wasn’t till my second day in Albania, that I started to understand what was going on.

I had decided to just ride on through the shit heap, and whilst there was an odd spectacular mountain pass, overall, the place was disgusting. It was everything I hate. I looked and looked, but not a trace of old, heritage was to be seen. There was shit everywhere, no town planning, and everything was an unfinished junk yard, covered in dust.

The Albanian idea of a beachside holiday town, are a sprawl of shitty apartment blocks, surrounded in rubble and garbage. Local cuisine?…dead sheep.

Let me give some advise of driving in Albania… Don’t.

These idiots, 10-15 years ago, didn’t have cars.  Back then, traffic cops controlled the traffic well…there was none. Roads then were fine, for donkeys.  But then, Albanians figured out how to get cars. They stole them. I’m told 95% of Albanian all cars, 10 years ago, were stolen from places like Germany. Today, every 5^th car is Mercedes. Today, I’m told, its only every second Merc that is ‘hot’. You can buy a Merc in Albania for chips.  So, in summary,  we have idiots behind the wheel of new 4 litre power packs, who have only just learnt to drive, on roads where donkeys now fear to tread, where are absolutely no road rules. It’s fucking dangerous shit, especially on a bike.

Some of the overtaking tactics, and driver stupidity, had to be seen to be believed. They may be maniacs in Naples, but at least Italians are world champion riders and drivers.

I was a nervous mess by the time I made it to a massive seaside shithole called Durres. I was under duress. I saw a internet cafe, and being outta touch for a week, just had to race in get my news, as the sun set, and i had nowhere to stay, in mile after mile of 8 storey abyss. So I just got on the bike, and said, spirits, save my arse, find me some recluse. I rode through mile after mile of ugly traffic jam, until the apartments turned into container depots. It was looking grim, but I had already conceded defeat, and was ready to sleep in sewerage. But I had an inkling, when i got a glimpse down the coast. So I rode, till the road turned to dirt, from dirt to rubble, and there infront of me, was a ram shackle kinda off, one-day-will- be marina… literally at the end of the road.

To my surprise, out popped an totally eccentric nutter called Wolfgang, who raided his arms ina wide sweep, proclaiming himself king off all i could see, and asked what I wanted. I wanted a place to camp.

I got more than a place to camp, I got fed, entertained, and informed. Wolfgang, as it turned out, was a former skipper, a writer, and marina manager, and more interestingly, he was a political shit stirrer, who had even the Albanian cabinet and mafia under his toe. Wolfgang had arrived here, 15 years ago, established a beach head ( literally) and fended of mafia, gun toting maniacs, corrupt governments, and had built himself the embryo of what will no doubt one day be Albania’s first marina.

In the process of doing this, Wolfgang had become the blog equivalent of Mike Moore, and had exposed, and undermined many corrupt mafia deal, and evil western corrupter. I had no idea how corrupt, how mafia impacted, and how desperate the situation was in Albania, until Wolfgang took me for a drive, for Sunday coffee, pointing out which evil fucka owned what, and who had been murdered to get it built.

The day I arrived, they mafia had just shot and murdered 4 cops, including the leader of the anti mafia police, which in itself is an oxymoronic concept, as the cops are so bent, there really is no such thing as anti mafia cops, they are just dealers in sentences. The guys who planned the sting,  where already in jail anyway, but not out of power. No one is safe, in Albania. You can just wheel in ya bulldozers, and build a block of flats in Albania, regardless of whether you own the land. It how dangerous and corrupt you are, that counts. I’m told much of the mafia expertise come from the centuries old alliance with the original and best mafia, the Italians.

The stolen Mercs still have the German plates. That way, they don’t pay rego.

My social conclusion, is the society in Albania is a rape victim in perpetuity. First it was raped by the communist government. Now, in counter swing, it is being raped by the mafia, the grand cleptocracy. No wonder the EU won’t let the Albanian in…they want their cars back first.

Drugs, false identities, laundering, black handed deals with equally black handed western governments and corporations, who are fully complicit in corruption process, regardless if you name in Vodaphone or Siemens…..this is the reason Albania now is a squalor of rubble and Mercs. It’s a disgrace. But hey Rod, welcome to the former communist world. Maybe all  I had to do, was accept it. I’m told Durres had prospered by being the port for the NATO transformation and aid, into the ideal NATO result: another mafia state, where the West could do all the dirty work that it finds hard to do in its own backyard. We, seemingly, in the West, are as much to blame for the corrupting  the once communist Europe, as the inhabitants themselves. We are the one, at government, and at corporate levels, shaking the black hands.

Looking at the dual headed, eagle-meets-serpent headed flag of Albania, on a blood red background, it’s clear, who and what the agenda is here, as the symbology, Iluminati-eque, or Sum-Aryan message, says it all in one.

Don’t kid yourself that the quaint ying-yang sign is about tadpoles, they are snakes in original form, and the mythology and symbology permeates every culture, religion, and politburo on earth, for those with a deeper understanding of history. But yes, there is dark and a light side to all the twisted  serpentine symbology, but it’s he who holds the knowledge, he who is ‘Iluminated’ , that controls the game, for either good, or evil. Unfortunately, for the last few thousand years, the guys at the top have favoured the dark use of the knowledge. It will be interesting to see if indeed, it turns out that the twisted helix of the DNA,  is infact  the real message being implied in the twisting serpents, as DNA is a whole new game.

I was told Montenegro, to the north, was also a mafia hole, just Russian mafia, not Italian mafia. So I rode right on through, in mile after mile of log jammed Mercs on never ending potholes, where it was impossible to figure where the potholes ended, and where the roadworks  began. It was seemless. It was high summer here, and every fourth car was part of a Sunday wedding, I would have passed at least 30 or 40 wedding cavalcades, today. Who the fuck would get married in Albania? I’d run.

The final bridge, feeding from a half built highways to a one lane, rusted out bridge,( to get into Montenegro), had a  traffic jam at the bridge alone (if you could call it a bridge) that was a 30 minute wait…just for 150 yards progress.

As soon as I was out of the shithole Albania, the farm land smiled, nature took a deep breath, and there was community intact, informed, and seemingly quite fun.

And it was still cheap, so for 10 Euro, I got my first room in months, and got to washing clothes, jet blasting the bike, and changing oil. I was in Ulcinj, where a million kinda fun Russians, do high density bikinis at the beach. But it’s almost civilised.

One of the first things you must do when you leave Albania, is shit out the toxic waste dump you were exposed to there. Fish, Fish for example…why did i eat fish in Durres, if I had just read the water was so polluted, it made swimmers rash up? I looked into Wolfgangs quaint Adriatic harbour, which he declared clean, but I noticed bubbles everywhere. Gas exploration has gone a bit too far in Albania…now the mud oozes Methane.

I was totally surprised, after the heritage destruction of Albania, to come across a seaside town in Montenegro, old Yugoslavia, where there is port of heritage excellence, its almost a world beater..it’s called Kotor as in rotor.

There is a fiord harbour there, flanked by massive mountains, along who’s shores is mile after mile of ancient stone seawall, with Devon-meets-Adriatic, little stone warehouses lining the foothills, all fully intact, and largely not ruined by Hilton, Vodaphone and the rest of  the usual suspects. The anchorage, from a boaties perspective, was magnificent. Even the once mega glam Christina O was moored here.

I’m staying here to explore.

And it seems Kotor, like its venetian influenced nearby Dubrovnik, was once, and particularly cultured, and seemingly prosperous waterfront town, or towns.

When regular homes and warehouses, cop ornate stone carved details, it’s obvious that there owners were not dirt poor. Ah, the riches of the once great Med. Now not a fish in sight, so reeling in Russian holiday makers will have to suffice.

This was Montenegro, another conspirator, I add, in shelling what Lord Byron once righty described as ‘the pearl of the Adriatic”. The Serbs once had the third best equipped army in Europe. In Croatia, at the receiving end of this all powerful army, they had partisan guts. I had coffee in Croatia today, with toughen looking kinda character, on a KTM 690, the real deal in adventure bikes. He had served 5 years in war, very recent war. War where the Catholic west met the intertidal zone of the Muslim east. A pal of his, with some anti tank gear he bought himself, crept up to the Serbian army, and one by one, he personally destroyed 40 Serbian tanks. Now that’s gutsy. Its a disgrace of monumental proportions, to think the world stood by as the animals at war, shelled Dubrovnik old city, as quite frankly, its architectural splendour out does anything in Paris or Rome.

The residue of Tito’s brutality, the massacres after and during WW2, added to the disgrace that was the most recent war in European history, have left a lot of older, uglier men, holding hearts of stone. The most cruel and savage of wars, is war with one neighbours, civil war.  I have had to really work at forgiving and improving my attitude to the Slavic mob, having had some very ugly experiences with them in the 80’s, when at 29, I had employed dozens of them building 30 storeys of just another thing, and my attitude was battling to improve, after i came across one evil old shit after another, all with the manners of Stalin, the happiness of a dead baby, and the appearance of a toxic waste dump. Unfortunately, these old bastards seemed to proliferate in the business of running what they call Auto Kamps, in Mein Kamp style. If it wasn’t for the cooler, younger generation in the former Yugoslavia, the place would be unbearable.

The Croatian coast is the best I have seen in the Med. I have seen a shitload of coast now, all France’s Riviera, the Italian coast down to the gorgeous Amalfi coast, and add in most of the Greek coast, many of its islands, and all of Turkey’s northern coast. That is a lot of coastline. So saying Croatia has the most blessed coast, is not an unqualified comment.

I add, however, that the Croatia coast in August is absurdly packed, fast becoming overdeveloped, and is a seasonal rippoff. But the blessings bestowed by nature, cant be beaten, as the mountain range that runs north south, forms spectacular backdrops, and with the same, parallel mountain range 10k offshore, almost the full length of the 600k coast, it’s a sailors heaven.

I am suffering coastal holiday saturation, after weeks and weeks riding along the beach ball, triteness of millions of Europeans soaking their sun starved bodies on every square inch of swimmable Med coastline. After a while, I’m left thinking, what’s the fucking point. Pay too much. Go to beach. Lie there till crisp. Do it again the next day. If ya young and cute, maybe get laid in the gaps. That’s about it. Oh, and if you get bored, do circles on a jet ski mindlessly, get pulled behind a boat on a parachute, like an idiot, or drink more beer. That’s maybe someone’s idea of a holiday, but it sure aint what travel is all about. Its soma in the Orwellian meets Brave New World. I’m a bit over it, and am heading to the alps, the urban, anything please, just no more stupid shops selling bright blow up things, or other colourful crap that gets thrown out as soon as the grey home life sets back in. What is it about holiday makers, that makes them want to buy silly, kindergarten coloured crap, as soon as they pull on a swimming costume? They do it the world over. I’m over it. Work all year, day in day out, just to go lick an ice cream? The world has lost all meaning, in its social purpose. Bring on the apocalypse, at least it could be a bit exciting. Oh, and not wanting to sound too racist, if there is going to be some devastating earthquake and tsunami somewhere, I recommend Albania. Woops.

As I pulled out of Montenegro headed to Dubrovnik, a black cat darted across my path, just as I hit the road.  I’m not superstitious, but when you are a 100km meat carcass, on a highway, sans airbags, you can’t just dismiss signs as impossibilities.

So I did my daily, ‘save my arse oh great spirits’ prayer, ending with the usual tribute the pagan sun god Amon, modified to what Christians have no idea what the say, when they say,’Amen’.

I didn’t get creamed by shit did happen. I heard a jerk and flutter at high speed, and once again , I looked down to see the self erecting tent gone. Recalling my M1 drama, I did an instant U turn, and floored it, back up to road, to retrieve the critter before it was pulped by a truck. But it was nowhere to be found. Not good. But on pulling up, I found it, jammed under the panniers, having been dragged at high speed for 1000m.

I had severed the frame in 4 locations, so the pop up, was now a flacid rag. I was within a few weeks of departure, heading back into rain territory, and was without a home, where room rates were 70% of my daily budget. Not good.

I stashed the ruins back alongside the bike, and in foul mood, headed north, expecting to quickly find a campsite, in which i could unfold my misery, and contemplate my demise. But , as the garage attendant informed me, it was 50 k to the next campsite, called ‘Rio’ something, and sure enough, it was a depressing , overpriced shithole.

The next day unfolded to a sensational sweeping drive along perfect road, up the Croatian coast to a funky homestead waterfront, where every room in the house, and every square inch of garden was rented to one of the zillion holiday makers doing the Croatian thing.

The next day, I got busy with splints, tubes and tapes, and somehow, put humpty dumpty back together again, recalling the greater misery of having sails shredded when at sea. Brian, or that was his Aussie nickname, was the manager, on the piss,and entertaining everyone, kids, mums, and madmen alike. Accordingly, he took a liking to me, and gave me some of his beer. The site was sort of half built, but it had a funky roasting fire, a stove, and an open air shower, a luxury, to boot. Adriatic azure lapped at the stome landing platforms, draped in windsurfers. I’d that afternoon, purchased a mile of orange adhesive tape, and proceeded to repair my shreaded tents in true Christo style. A few beers lead to some unusual splint materials for the 4 broken tent ribs. Australian etiquette required fencing wire to become one splint, strapped by cable ties, and wrapped in plastic, orange style. Brian, or Branco-something, came up with a novel spilt for one of the trickier corners, and now, a complete windscreen wiper, again cable lied and wrapped in plastic, orange style, keeps one part of the tent rigid.

Holes in the tent itself are now a mass of orange tape, tastefully offset by the moss green of the main tent body. The whole effect is quite cute. I wake in the morning to two orange eyes looking at me, like stain glass windows in a green array.

Now to matters motor cycle.

There is no question now, despite my reservations, that I have become a fullblown, fully qualified motorcyclist.

Months now, riding day after day, make all those weekend warriors on bike, look like true amateurs. I qualify my expertise on one basic fact> I’m still alive.

Biking is not exactly safe, especially in rock strewn Andean hairpins, and Albania intersections. Even  circling the Arc de Triumph is a challenge.

So I pat myself on the back, and get into the idea, the culture and the people. For some odd reason, these days, nearly all serious tourers, are over 45, many over 60, especially out of Germany, and good on em. One German rider i met, met was heading to the States for 6 months, looking as fit as a forty year old, with the blessing, I add of his cute wife, 20 years the younger. It only cost him $700 to ship his bike to the US, door to door, return included.

Now guys, any bike riders reading, there is, believe it of not, a place where you can get seriously fast and funky on bike, and still end up both alive, and with license.

There is Croatian coast road. First built by the Romans, then upgraded by Tito, and recently repaved and made redundant by a mega autoban just inland, from Zadar, ( without the cops radar) to Senj, on the northern coast of Croatia. You could roller blade it in comfort. But each bend is an immaculate conception of view, camber, and grace, and there are hundreds of uninterrupted miles of the fuca.

Hot modern bikes have tyres stickier than golden syrup, frames tighter than the 911 lie, and power packs that make the Norton Commando or Kawasaki Z1 look like prams.

I rode this road in amazed thrill. Even with shitful knobby tyres, now almost slicks, I was hanging it out. My removalist truck panniers, even with the height of GS, were almost an endangered species. To the left, was the azure of the Adriatic, ducking and weaving its way through inlets and coves, and flooded as a mountain range met its Atlantis farewell: a view of uninterrupted majesty. To the right and above me, was an outrage of the unsunken mountains, bursting up 1000m, garnished with a salad of hardly vegetation at the lower levels, and strictly hardcore rock at height. Spectacular.

Lefthanders were tight and terrific: these were the bends at the head of each bay. Right handers wrapped the headlands, with the view spetac, but with the need for the concentration spiced, as loosing it here, and it was rocky and wet ending.

They used to say the Italian Riviera was the grand ride. Not any more. Not at 50k, with every bend concealing an idiot doing a U turn to slide his Smart into a vacant parking slot. I met some German guys on deadly street racers, who, like me agreed, that the sexiest road in Europe, is the one above, to which I refer. They come here annually, just to leave  some rubber behind. They keep it simple, with full leathers, a credit card, and a sleeping bag.

Just before Senj, in Northern Croatia, we all ended up in wild side camping ground deep in a beachside ravine, where clumsy campervans and cars could not enter, and where a dozen or so tents  enjoyed a truly spectacular Adriatic beach, below 4 or 5 old stone fishing cottages.

The guys with credit cards and no tents, had done well that night, as when after midnight, the neo cyclonic winds set it, even though we were in the lee of the mountain, the wind flattened nearly every tent, and if was not for the old fig to which my tent was tied, it would be half way across the Adriatic with my  towel. Towels sink.

The water was clear to 40m. I swam and swam the next morning, but never found my towel.  120km/hr, within an hours build up, we get the wind risk that is the Adriatic. As my tent flatten into my face at 3 in the morning, all  Icould think was, thank Christ this is a tent, not a boat.

I rode in Slovenia the next day, by the by ways, and not the highways. What a relief it was, to be away from the moronic mentality of beach ball Europe in summer. No more crowds. No more traffic. No more signage, crap and over development. Up and up the roads into the Alps rose, each mile getting greener, and more real. Bullshit new blocks of flats disappeared, and mile by mile, everything became more Hapsberg, more Austrian. Sure, the Hapsburgs were evil Iluminati Satanists, but hey, they make great town planners, farmers, and architects. The Hills are Alive, with the Sound Of Music.

There is Slovenia, and there is Slovakia. It’s a fine point, but they are two different countries. Slovenia, is the most forested, and allegedly greenest country in Europe. Sure, on the autobahns, you can cross Slovenia in 2 hours, but not by the hay stack route I took. They have these things called a Kozolec, that are hay drying racks under snow deflecting roofing, that use a cool  grid pattern timberwork,  and they deserve the national iconic status they have delivered, and they, like all the pretty little challet homes , are fucking everywhere.  Yo di ley hi ho.

I ended up in a alpine resort area near Postojna, where a gorgeous alpine restaurant allowed me to camp in their spectacular garden, in the prettiest woodland I have seen in years, and guys, my spinach noodles with pumpkin has just arrived at my table, so uuroo till next paragraph.

Slovenia has got to get the big rave. Pity its so tiny, you could autobahn through it in two hours. I didn’t. I had no idea what to expect. I was stunned. Its bar far the best value beauty in Europe on my trip so far. The zig zags I did, on the back roads, were beyond belief, in alpine beauty. The limestone version of the ALPS runs  through Slovenia, turning crystal clear mountain streams into turquoise jewels…. all set against mountain backdrops, that has me reconsidering the Andes, as the worlds most spectacular mountains. Unlike Western Europe’s ALPS, the Slovenia version is more about nature than ski resorts and industrial parks in the valleys. Its not cheap, but its no sheer theft, like the western ALPS. If I were I skier, I’ld be giving the French and the Austrians the finger, not the cheque, if I were insane enough to go sking in $$$$ Europe.

I’m just an outright fan of alpine areas. Comparing they types of tourist along the med beaches, to  Alpine versions, I vote Alpine every time, as the Alpine ones are sporting, healthy, and into nature. The beach ones, are vain, lazy, and are just into suntans. The guys running the camping sites, are cool and sporting too, unlike  the fat ugly arseholes cashing in on their grandad’s waterfront land around the Adriatic, running the hospitality around the Med.

Slovenians are multilingual ,well educated, and flanked by Slavs, Italians and Germans.

My border arrival was met by the village fete, were the local dads were hacking up slabs of meat on throwing them on bread for the hungry, fund raising eaters, as the stage entertained with weird local dance and Slovenian music. I checked in on the gliding guys, the rafting guys, the kayakers, and believe it of not, the world high diving guys, who throw themselves into the azure lime flavoured rivers, from great heights. With the river water colour so alluring, who wouldn’t be tempted to dive into it.

The Slovenian roads were masterpieces of biker joys, and every bike rider in Europe, pack after pack, had come to Slovenia to ride the valleys and mountain passes. Thousands of us. The speed freaks, in leather and clip-ons, must be immune to paying local speeding fines, as they sure know how to hang it out at Mach 2.

There is a great camaraderie  amongst the international bike people, and everyone, but everyone waves the spare fingers above the clutch ( there is no way anyone lets off the throttle side)…. and I , with mega spot lights on each front pannier, like landing lights, return the waves with a handsome light flash. You end up doing this almost every second minute. It’s different to the weird French and Dutch, who wave with their foot when overtaking, very odd.

There is a whole restaurant and hotel set, specifically targeting touring bikes. It would be fair the call Slovenia, the bikers world capital. Go ride it one day.

I had a dive into the Alpine gorges, and was out again almost as fast as a reversed home movie, with instant less volume in the slugos after the icy hit.

After one free nights camping at the woodland restaurant neat Skocjan caves  , I had another in the spectacular Soca  Valley,  riverside, above Bovec, and a third night  in bed of forest compost, on the edge of a Lake Bohinj where it seems the whole place was designed by the gods of nature based tourism, in some fit of creative beauty. I really like the Slovenians, they are unassuming, cool, and not full of greed like us and the western Europeans. The old commo ways didn’t wreck everything, and my dream to see Europe in an authentic, rural kinda beauty, without the evils of the cleptocracy, and post commo mafia, was happily fulfilled in Slovenia.

I give Slovenia a 9 out of 10 to. If I was to buy a cut little alpine retreat anywhere in Europe, it would be Slovenia, the best kept secret. It’s as clean and charming as Austria, without the hype, and is historically a  Hapsburg, Austrian ruled gig anyway. When a beer and a meal is affordable, it makes life a lot more fun than much of the remaining rippoff Europe.

So I was in no hurry to leave Slovenia, but had kinda run out of Alpine bits, so slipped over the border into Austria, via those lime stone Alps.

Riding around Austria feels like being a toy man, on a toy bike, in a big model train set. It’s all so perfect, so beautiful, it makes me wonder how Austrians can cope with the rest of the untidy, imperfect world. If Hitler had been a bit more cool and benevolent, the Austrians may well have made good world leaders. Arnie and Adolf eh…Austria’s 2 grand contributions to world leaders. Mmm. Weird.

I wasn’t even going to bother dealing with the campsite and restaurant food price hikes when shifting from east to west Europe, so I bought some bread and canned bean soup ( delicious I add) and headed up into the Austrain woods, just below the winter snow ski line, 150 south of Salzburg, and wound my way up some foresters trail, made a fab fire, downed half a bottle or red, and loved it, remembering why I love home so much , as in Australia, it’s not hard to find real camping sites, where there is no one around, and you can make a fire, as here in Europe, after months on the road camping, this was the very first time I could actually sit a around  a fire in the woods. Europe has one big problem…500,000,000 Europeans, and not much space.

The next day I was going to do lunch in Salzburg, where the hills are alive, with the sound of mass tourism, to then spilt the city and camp.

My bike is an amazing thing. It has a benevolence born of angelic guidance. I recall the time in Ireland, when the old Beemer was about to throw a crank sensing switch, a potentially  super expensive, get towed fuck up, and the bike somehow, in a one on a million manipulation, konked out, and rolled to the door of a BMW dealer, who directed me to a repair guy who was so kind, so cheap, and so dedicated to helping, it restored my faith in mechanics. Had it happened anywhere else, I would have been fucked.

Today was the same. As I pulled into Salzburg, 100m from my destination, I felt the front brakes go soft, so I parked in on the river at the gates to the old city, took out my tools, whipped off the front disk calliper, and discovered a shoe thrown from a brake pad. It was immaculate timing, as the internet cafe nearby, led me to a equally close dealer, who had the part in from the airport within hours, but I somehow knew, the real reason for the Beemer’s choice of  splat spot was angelic intervention. My real worry on the bike was not the brakes, it was the tyres.

I had started with knobby tyres, which are bad enough at the best of times, but when worn to the core, with slow leaks from old nails, and a grip pattern so bad, it  reduced my road contact in dangerous ways, I was really running on empty, and it was getting dangerous, but with $500 needed for new tyres, and already living on beans with bears in the forest, there was no way I was going to afford new rubber in Europe. But as I arrived at the BMW dealer in Salzburg, home of zee perfectionist Aryan mechanic, I had whispered a please please to the gods, as I knew,  and the Beemer knew, there was a reason behind this twist of mechanical  fate.

There, in the back of the BMW bike workshop, was a pile of seemingly, as new Tourag ‘used’ tyres, and sure enough, I could help myself. Within minutes, the bike was stripped of bags, brakes and wheels, and for $150, an hour or two later, I had new brakes, spare brake linings( care on the kind mechanics), and new rubber. Very sexy.

Once again, the Beemer had delivered a little pain, for a lot of gain, and in a place, more expensive than just about anywhere else in Europe. This was getting to be beyond coincidence.

It was at this point, that I decided this bike could not be sold, as it was vehicle blessed.

I had just the night before, studied and read more confirmation of the intuitive benevolence theory, the one of just surrendering to the cosmos, where the theory goes kinda like this…if ya just do what ya soul wants, and float along on ya lilo, whilst others paddle like fuck to do this, or do that, and instead just be, then the cosmos tends to look after you….. sure, it throws some little nasties at you, but nasties designed to help, long term, not hinder.

I’ve travelled now for 5 fulltime years of my 54 so far. Each time, towards the travel’s end, I get a bad case of, ‘oh shit’… ‘I got to go to work’paranoia. Even now, I go, oh shit, it’s a recession, my career type is largely unemployable, and I could be fucked real soon. But then thinking back, I have never been fucked, and always, things work out just fine, on the day, regardless of the months spent worrying about the future. So when, these days, my mind reverts  to ‘oh shit, where’s tomorrow’s money gunna came from’,  I have to whip myself back into the now, tell my egoic self to go fuck itself, and, as in today’s case, just soak in the absolute beauty and magnificence, of riding through the drop dead gorgeous Austrian countryside. If you look after the now, the rest is not an issue.

The number plate of the bike is so perfect, and so odd, I add, for British plates, as they read, “Que Sera Sera’. I couldn’t believe it, when after owning the bike for a few months, I read the plate for the first time.

A 62 year old Italian guy, also touring on a BWW, noticed the plate straight away, along with the obvious fulltime traveller look of the kit, and was instantly impressed, breaking immediately into song… “whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera , sera”. The tune stuck in my head for days, quite happily.

I like the story of the old Indian grandfather, teaching his young sqaw-sters, a lesson in life. As the tale goes, the old guy explains, he has two wolves competing in his head, one wolf obsessed with fear, anger and greed, and the other wolf into peace, love and fun.

The kid asks, ‘So granddad,’ which wolf wins?’ And the old Indians replies, “The one I feed’.  So it is, it seems with Zen and the art of touring.

Just across the border from toy train-s-ville-Austria, is the place that the evil but stylish Hapsbergs had as the base of their glorious kingdom. Its a place that was well fucked over by the Hapless bergs, overt feudal masters,( unlike today’s covert feudal masters). The place to which I refer is the Czech Republic,  one of those central European hot spots, that every emperor and his sycophants want to rule.

The first world war almost got flame going here. The Nazis were appeased, between the wars, in another ‘shadow government’ deal, and took out, not only Sudetenland, but the whole fucking country. Hitler lost. So Czechs , who’d been slaughtered by the Nazis, then slaughtered the Germans, in their farewell march. Stalin had a go next, he slaughtered a good hand. Then local  liberal socialists, 40 years ago to the month, wanted to put a ‘friendly face’ on socialism, to which the Russians responded, (with no idea what a friendly face even looks like),  by wheeling the tanks into Prague, or Praha, as they call it locally, Praha .  The Russians kept up the grim face, and oppression, until , a few weeks after the Berlin wall went, the velvet revolution freed Praha ha ha, with the final joke being pulled by the EU, a ‘velvet’ takeover, is ever there was one. These days, the country is besieged by tour groups. Poor fucking Czechs. No wonder they are such a cool, cultured lot, else could you do but laugh, when the only other alternative is to cry, Praha ha ha.

I rolled through the old abandoned border posts, through forests, where once the guard towers and Cold war freeze kept the escapees’ under the thumb. Whores sitting on highway fencing, and cheap junk markets mark the first ignoble, and uncharacteristic greeting as you enter from the Austra german border. I thought I could wing it through northern Austria with no map, no GPS, and no idea. I was wrong. I got so lost, I said , fuc it, head to Germany, as at least I have the German charts on my GPS. But no doubt, like many an army before me, I tried my entry where one mother of a river, sent me back to square one, before I finally found a way, into CZ.

There was a lake district near a place called Horni Plana, and never having seen a sexy timber tool before, to Horni Plana I headed. Instantly, the toy trainset perfection of Austria faded to a real, authentic, and gorgeous, rolling rural vista. And the prices dropped by half. Beer was no longer $6, it was $1.50 for 500ml. I pitched camp lakeside with swarm of Germans, Italians and Czechs, and  unzipped the tent door the next morning at dawn, to see a lake blurred in deep, sexy fog. Just up the road from the lakes district, was a former medieval town called Ceskey Kromlov, that would have the take the cake, for Europe’s best walled town, bestowed with the coolest clock tower on earth. Moted, manicured, and packed, I was indeed impressed. But I hadn’t yet seen inside Praha.

Rolling into Prague late in the afternoon, I pulled up chair on the river, and ordered a coffee, an obvious mistake, when the Italians next to me pointed out that the beer was half the price of the coffee, and it’s the best on earth. It’s where the invented Pilsener.  And Budweiser is actually local town, not a beer logo. There is nothing special about the countryside, and the outer ring of ‘burbs’ in Prague, and I was wondering if the stories of the place’s magic were just another trick.

But then I rode a bit deeper, got a beer, and took a wander. Oh my god. What a Disney wonderland, is Prague on dusk. There aint not palace in Europe like the Prague gig. Its more a suburb than just a palace. Every dick and his Masonic obelisk has stamped his Iluminati print on this town, and they don’t even hold back on the covert bit, as the full overt third eye atop Baal’s penis, complete with winged serpents, crucfix’s and  coats or arms all blend into the most blatant statement in demonic/Babylonian symbolism in Europe, just dripping from every inch of the palaces, and their mates in the church and military ( all one gig actually).

Its maybe pagan occultism underneath, but it sure makes for magnificent architecture, and a cityscape like none I have seen. Jeesh, how much blood and plunder must have funded this place. It’s magnificent, and to the 1 in 500 tourists who actually understand the message in the statues, symbols, obelisks and gargoyles, its sure more deep end gig, than a Da Vinci Code tour. Layer after historical layer is there, from Gothic to Baroque to Bauhaus. Deco has never had it so good.  No wonder Prague ruled much of Europe for so long.

Frozen in time by a deep chill of the Cold war, Prague rocks. I camped two night in an apple orchid, in an old homestead’s riverside backyard, and dodged the falling apples, taking the odd bight out of ones that took my fancy, and hey, apples fresh from the tree sure taste better than ones that do a 6 week tour of the markets by semitrailer. If this was the Garden of Eden, I ate enough apples to commit the original sin, and twenty copies.

But the beer and the hoards of ice cream lickers took its toll, as always. So too did the pizza and the liquid chocolate waffles. I was pondering what a wipe-out it would be, if the pot tourism of Amsterdam, was overlaid with the cheap beer and Disney castles of Prague…the place would be overrun with armies of dazed, open mouthed, droollers.

You can afford to eat almost anywhere, even prime time spots, in Prague. Do the same in Paris, and your credit card with self implode.

I had an appointment in Germany on Monday, so on Sunday morning, I took a bite of my last apple, and headed to spot that sounded cool , in the few lines describing it in Lonely Planet. The Czech German border area, in sandstone, forested canyons, had the good start name of Bohemian Switzerland, and was once, I gather, the domain of woodsmen, and river boatmen, all in some log cabin meets crazed artist and royalty blur. I had been blown away by the Slovenia’s version of woodland retreat, and I thought there was nothing cuter on earth. Sure, Switzerland and Austria are the supposed log cabin capitals of the world, but to the travel wary eye, these absurdly wealthy countries have ruined their heritage, by forever perfecting it….to the point where a Swiss chalet just ain’t the real deal anymore. One the other side of that iron curtain, it’s another story altogether. EU or no EU, the true authentic character of log cabin charm, can be found in Slovenia, and, here in CZ. In Austria, the 3 level, old original chalet I have all to myself tonight, would have cost hundreds of Euros, in Switzerland, for just one room. I have all ,of the most charmed lodge, I have ever stayed in, alongside a bubbling brook, with immaculate alpine gardens, and heritage gems all around, for all of $30 night. With meals. How could I resist. Fuck camping tonight. The French charge the same for a cramped shitty campsite, and the filthy French arseholes don’t even provide toilet paper for that price,(and no, no bidet either).

I’m enjoying the couched and low ceilings of the lounge rooms, off my choice of bedrooms, and might retire for some reading now dears. Ya gotta love CZ.

Dresden is just across the border from Praha,  and Dresden is maybe better known for dying than living, so I was a bit surprised when I rolled into the part or Germany than was verboten on my last visit, as Dresden has be dressed up and rebuilt, and is all quite spiffy, considering we heroic war victors bombed the fuc out of it, slaughtering tens of thousands in a firestorm of Slaughter House 5 proportions, including the destruction of the gracious old city. Considering the West’s outrage at the bombing of Dubrovnik, we’ve obviously got a short memory.

I was in Dresden for lunch, which i had actually brought with me ex of the Czech breakfast laid on in my own personal chalet. God knows how much of Europe can shit anything other than furnace bricks, after adding meats and cheeses to bread, for breakfast each day. I’m convinced whole national psyches are a product of what and when people eat stuff. There is no myth in the concept of anal retentive, or full of shit. Toxic lower bowel means shitty attitude. But regardless of the perils, I sliced the rolls in the main square of Dresden, and set about having an indulgence of cheeses and cured meats that only a bunch of old style, ex Commo famers could produce…besides, it was cheaper than paying German restaurateurs. The jump back into Western Europe and the Euro almost doubles some prices….petrol in Germany is for example is $2.60/l….a lot more than in CZ. Albeit some things in Germany make Ireland and France looks a complete rippoff. I like Germans, they like Dutch are liberal, progressive and funky, even with strong alternate crew. Germany is the world’s most efficient machine. The machine tends to have  bad health and safety record on issues of the heart, but its head and sexuality compensate.

My first stop was Leipzig to meet Christian Machen, the worlds first man to make a hydrogen boat, and the leader lynch pin in a small group of interested partied who form the World Marine Hydrogen  crew, and as I am planning the worlds wildest hydrogen marine project, the meeting with Christian was an essential and fun bonding at first sight, which went  long into the night, and across a few days, and hopefully, many more years.

Christian is an expert, an innovator, and drummer, a fun dad, and a engineer….almost a perfectly balanced human. I camped either in the uninhabited part of his huge home reno project, or camped in its old orchard garden, whilst rolling in and out of wotif teco discussions, which almost conclusively brought an end to some overly ambitious, and multimillion dollar on board experiments on the TRYBRID project, and got the whole thing back on track. The cold hard facts about the promised land known as the Hydrogen economy, is that it remains a years away whilst we endure 40 more years in the hydrocarbon desert.

Accordingly, some of the green dreams of Trybrid needed a slap in the face, no more attempting ( with $500,000) to electrolyse H2 on board, loosing 60% of the solar energy along the way, and no more spending another half mill trying to clean up the Hydrogen to 99.999% pure, for automotive type aspirations, by way of PEM fuel cell. Dump the half mill worth of 6000psi, carbon fibre H2 storage tanks, and their oil free, high tech compressor.  Instead  let’s just look and see what we can do with natural gas or LPG, by combusting it with H2 in diesel engines, or by putting steam reformed natural gas made into H2, and feed it through a fuel cell…. all a lot simple , more practical, and millions cheaper.

So the next day i rode all the way to the south of Germany, to see WS Reformers face to face, and eyeball their gear.  Their gear makes Hydrogen rich gas outta natural gas, by mixing it with steam, and running it over a cathode. The units to do this are the size of the stainless kitchen tidy bins, but we may need many of them.

I found out all sorts of interesting stuff here at WS, including rumour of incredibly cost reduced fuel cells that may well suit the steam reformed H2 idea. Germans make cool engineers at birth, but over lunch, with the worlds very best and most progressive engineers, it’s a sheer pleasure talking engineering. Hydrogen stuff makes automotive or other mechanical engineering look dead boring…what is happening in Hydrogen, is exciting shit.

I stayed overnight near Wurzburg, then on return, stayed in the Black Forest,  near Switzerland, presumably called ‘Black’ ,after being forested into oblivion, in clear felled site of the alpine tourist towns, such that it must surely be a black listed environmental disaster zone by now. Compared to the Alps in Slovenia for example, the German part was an environmental disgrace. Germany is big on machine-able enviro issues, but not so cool on simple mother earth issues.

For example, on energy, the size and proliferation of the massive new German wind farms has to be seen to be believed, so when oil runs out, (which will be well before the climate goes weird), Germany will be ready.

I had my first intensive training in the wild west of the German autobahns, and after double strapping the tent and the kit, I soon found myself in the pack doing 130k as though we were all just  waiting in check out cue. It was here I learnt why serious tourers buy BMW’s, not Jap crap, as at speed, the purr of the boxer BMW, a design coup now over 50 year old, combined with the truck’n stability of BMW carcasses, makes the GS the only logical choice for the high speed, long distance rider. They are like mules on steroids. But farrrrk….when some guy overtakes in the outside lane at close to 200kph, it scares the shit out of ya…the lesson: never change lanes without a good look backwards first. The nice thing about German autobahns is they are both free, and the best roads on the planet.  The tolls to do the same run in France cost more than the air ticket for the same distance.

So I rode back into Leipzig to enthuse of my latest news a views with Christian, encouraging him to be the engineering director for the project, on the propulsion side, where solar, diesel, hydrogen and a bunch of weird hydrocarbon gases all come together under the control of fancy software, and lots of bright shiny machines…. orchestrated hopefully by Christian…besides, he’s done it  before.

The ride into Berlin was sure different to when i last did the trip 34 years ago. Back then, Berlin was a captured island inside the iron curtain, where the road into Berlin went through communist turf, and it seemed no communist was gunna allow West Germans to maintain the decrepit concrete highway feeding Berlin. The concrete slabs back then had become more like launching ramps, which would launch my Kombi at each join, making for an Evil Knievel  ride. These days, if you can detect a 20mm drop over 20m you are doing well….how the Germans get concrete to set to such exacting levels is beyond me…and I thought the Yanks made good roads….not by comparison to Germans.

I love Germans, but Berlin takes the cake…. I have only just arrived at this writing edition, but  just as the mayor of Berlin once quipped, ‘we may be poor, but we are sexy’…. and this sure rings true for the funky, alternate, liberal, artistic Berlin. Hey, if we too were gunna be nuked any day , for going on 40 years, I would party till debauched became an art, too.

Berlin, is my favourite grunge city in Europe. More history, has gone down here, in the last 70 years, than anywhere on earth. 10 million soldiers all had in in their Russian or Allied sights, when they stormed the place, killing a million in Berlin along the way, before hoistinga Red flag on the Reichstag.

In 1990, when the then spokesman for the besieged East German government, was hit with questions in the first international press conference of the party’s existence, he got caught on the hop, when reading from a government  press release, suggesting travel restrictions between east and west german sides, would be releases. In a hungover sweat from doing vodka shots till 4am, the night before, when asked when the border restrictions would be relaxed, he could find nothing on the A4 sheet, and began to sweat, so instead of finding a date, he just read the date on the top right hand corner of the sheet, making east to west passage effective, well, ah, immediately. 5000 east Berliners immediately confronted 3 East German border post guards. Stasi ordered they shoot. there were 5000 protesters, and only 11 bullets. The rest is history. The wall was breached and flooded, and the single biggest historical event in that last 25 years began to disassemble the evil communist states. The Nazis had 1 spy SS per 6000 people. The KGB had one internal spy per 2000 Russians. The Stasi had 1 spy per 60 Germans. 1 in 6 East Germans had done deals for the Stasi. It was the sickest, most cruel oppression of the western world.  And it breached, all because of a hangover in reading a press release.

I love it. Berlins is, as they say alive. If you are sick of Berlin, you are sick of life. If I were to live in Europe, fuck the fancy Paris, the money deadhead London, and give me Berlin, ( with amsterdam a hot second)…anyday.

Viva la revolution that is the collapse of the iron curtain. Just 19 years ago.

 I could be hanging around auditioning for a part in the remake of a SOUND OF MUSIC, lying here in grassy fields below the Alps, but unless Julie Andrews is replaced by a singing porn star,  and unless I get back on track, the hills will likely never be alive with the sound of anything. There’s the sound of the snow melt stream, gurgling behind me, however. There’s few tweedy birds. And in a couple of hours, there will be a campsite once again full of chatty mountaineers. You can tell a mountaineers’ tent: its the one with multiple guy ropes. On the edge of a precipice, in 40 knot air, at 4000m, the added guy ropes could be handy, but here in a Chamonix campsite, the guy ropes are just added trip wires for vin Rod, returning from la toilette.

I arrived in Europe on a rusty Russian ferry, along with a bunch of truckies, bikies and sales reps, after being dutifully disembowelled via the bow onto a Belgium dock. 36 pounds and 3.6 hours to cross from Ramsgate to Ostend…  that’s 10 quid an hour to read, then reread the only thing I could find in the ferry’s,’70’s laminated lounge… a holiday guide to Slovenia, or Slovakia…or somewhere once Slow. Whilst on the English cell net, as Ramsgate faded, I shot off a few, last, cheap priced SMS’s, by way of thankyous and invites.

On boarding the ferry, I had been joined by two fit, handsome older Dutch guys, who had introduced me to the world of the super scooter, a phenomena more European than I had known, and one where, at 60 years old, for example, with 500cc of gutsy super scooter motor under you, with its miles of wheel base, wardrobes of storage, sofas of seating…you could simply zip over the English Chanel, hit the motorways at 130km, and tour the world in comfort and style, with only the passing derision of real bikers as a social setback.

Maybe I should try and be the first wanker to circumnavigate the world on a super scooter?  Sadly no doubt, being the way the weird world is, you can bet some dweeb, and his grandma, have already done it.

I don’t know much about Brussels other then what I read about  at the visible, and at the invisible level. At  visible level, Brussels is the seat of the giant nanny state known at the EUThe EU> it’s all about money honey, mixed in with a massive standards association from hell. On the invisible level, Brussels, is, and has been for years, Europe’s leading Iluminati operations centre. WW3, ex of Europe is now less likely.

But after a hammering ride, from mid England, to Europe’s Brussels’ and then onto Amsterdam, all  under pressure to make impossible ferry schedules,  and then to be caught in the heaviest trucking traffic I have ever seen,  well, by the time I pulled into a  Belgium trucker’s grill, complete with Brussels-does-Elvis decor, I was not in the mood for light banter, which was just as well, as after a month or two of English speaking destinations, I was once again parked at the Tower of Babel.  I note, nonetheless, what between the EU, Hollywood and Windows, it now seems everyone in Europe has ease of English as a second language, making me feel quite illiterate, but  nonetheless, happy not to have to make conversation in Belgium, where I have no idea what they speak anyway, nor did I care. The 500kg plate of fish and fried stuff arrived, and it was all I could do to, to just get through it, let alone talk.

Twilight lingers forever around the European summer solstice, June 22ish, and after the line of trucks banked up as though they were just about to be bombed by George senior, I took to doing the safer lane sliding technique, using the 4m wide, side lane as my personal road. By sheer bad luck, I was intercepted by Belgium cops, who then insisted their instant fine be full filled, by escorting me to the nearest ATM, to extract $100. This they did by escorting me down the left hand lane for a mile or two, which was the cause of the fine in the first place. Once in a free lane, they ran me well over the speed limit to keep up, and on arrival, stood there, like mafia beside a fluro Volvo, as I extracted their money from a Hong Kong Bank. I love globalism, it can fuck you up anywhere you go. I pointed out to the cops, that my disfavour for their instant welcoming committee would insure I would never again, in this lifetime , return to Belgium, and that a law that extracts penalties before a court case can challenge it, and which allows cops to demand cash by a police escort to an ATM, was surely a case of law makers gone mad, which, on contemplation, is exactly what Belgium is all about. So, I arrived in Belgium, ate fried stuff, was fined, and left. That should do for Belgium for another 33 years, as that was how long it had been before my last equally short visit.

These days, when you cross from one European country to the next, you are doing well if you can find a sign telling you what country you are in. The Welcome to the Nederland’s sign came in the form or some highway guide to local street speed limits. No one seemed to think it necessary to put up a sign saying, hey dude, you are now in another country.

A lifetime ago in the mid 70’s, I recall observing that the ‘alternative types’ that gave us that folly suggesting all you need is love, had moved on mass to Amsterdam. Back in the 70’s many of these artists, pot smokers and philosophers had acquired barges and wooden train cars,  so as to extend their Kombi space, and this hardware they had liberally spread around the disused islands and wetlands surrounding Amsterdam, decorating them with prayer flags and rainbows. One such island is at Zeeberg, about 4k out of mid ‘Dam. Arriving as the light had just faded before midnight, I rediscovered that all the 70’s hippies had not left, they had just made a motza by converting their aquatic commune into the busiest campsite I have ever seen. All of Europe, Russia and rest of the world had come to discover the Dam and participate in the great liberal dope smoking experiment that is the Dutch way. A tent by a waterway seemed better than a dorm at double the price, so I pitched the pop up tent beside a nest of swans and ducks, and proceeded to watch as hundreds of tents become fading party centres for aromatic smokers, and beer drinkers. The tent popped up, just as it did on the M1, and a few grazes aside, I had myself a Dutch waterfront.

I love the Dutch.

Who couldn’t.

Maybe it’s the liberal, tolerant greenie in me. Maybe it’s the old hippy. Whatever the reason is, I proffer an opinion that helps me at least, understand why I love Holland.

It goes like this. In England, and for that matter, Deutschland and France, where rolling pastures make getting fat, easier than living below sea level, especially for  those disposed to get fat on the back of others, namely the lords, barons and Louis the what-teenths,  who sewed up the locals as slaves, made their motza’s, and gained fame by one mindless European war after another, spilling industrial quantities of their serf’s blood. Meanwhile , the Dutch were busy bailing, and their feudal masters never got a chance to evolve. Dutch traded, as Europeans went to war. Dutch society was not, in consequence, I conclude, subject to the evil enslaving ways of their neighbours, and as such, had a moment to ponder more fully, the principle exposed (but rarely deployed by their neighbours) of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite….or, in the loose Rod translation…we are all one family, of equal, free, men and women.

My little Sound Of Music setting may need to shift soon, and the blisteringly blue alpine skies of Chamonix are making way for the afternoon thunderstorm, and it may not pay to sit on wet grass at the end of a 25m, 240 volt cable I found outside one of  the oh so French, squat toiltettes. Yesterday, after riding 630 k from Paris, I was drenched in seconds by a shower in the last 10k run, between the dark timbered Swiss style chalets. Its hard knowing which country you are in, as Italy, Switzerland and France are all neighbours here, and when I bought a bread roll for lunch today, it was a French roll, and the cheese I bought just up the street, technically it was Swiss.

In the Dam, the canals encircle the entire city, which is more a town, by comparison to the massive, 13 million pax Paris.

I love all things boatie, and to be allowed to float some outrageous home into the middle of a chic city, and then make like a liberal dope smoking artiste cum, intellectual, is my idea of rule bending , bending the right way.

By the way, the thunder and showers now make the tent a cute retreat, whilst Chamonix waters its window box geraniums, and everything is happy. I love living in tents. God knows why I once owned 23 houses when one tent would do.

So yep, I could well live forever in the Dam, in my cosy barge, with my trusty black pushbike, and mixing it with all those liberal philosophers, smoking, drinking or abstaining with friends as we chug down the city canals on a Sunday afternoon, in someone’s modified lifeboat> life would be, as they say, good. Crass motorboats and yachts just don’t qualify here, and so you don’t need to pay for the damn things, as they won’t fit under the bridges anyway. Kinda like some eye of the needle story… ‘All yee who want to enter the kingdom of heaven, must leave thy yachts and big homes behind, as all we have room for is a rented barge, ya black pushbike, and that’s it”.

Boating takes on a new twist when it passes by windows with Russian dolls for sale, by the hour, and with it, next door, odours enough to make Norbert the Nark epileptic.

I also love the way the Dutch ride pushbikes…and not just because they ride, but how they ride. It’s in the pose. One should, in my formal view, ride erect. Not because of what is in the  Russian Doll windows, but because of the ergonometry of the equipment. Dutch pushbikes are tall, with handlebars swept back to the natural fall of the wrist and hand, and are not lowered and crossed like our daft mountain bikes bars, or worse still, dropped by racing drop bars,  bars that no one ever uses anyway. The effect is gracious, and to ride around Haarlem accompanied by my dear friend Anoesjka, as her blond hair sailed along behind, on a sunny summers day in Holland, to me seemed close to heaven. Haarlem is a picture postcard satellite of the Dam, where any bright minded, loving mum like Anoesjka, would do well raising two beautiful twins such as her Nils and Yanika. Behind Haarlem are miles of forested dunes, in which lie clear lakes, and odd bunch of hairy Scottish cows, and so given the warmth of the impending summer, and to celebrate and end to the ever wet England, I stripped down to slugO’s, and did a few laps of the lake, with Anoesjka, Nils and Yanika as my hosts.

I spent almost a week in Amsterdam, returning to my urban , swan lake tent each night, to watch as either mum or dad swan, take turns on guard duty. With daylight never ending, plants are in overdrive, and with it, all the breeding couples of nature are hard at it, raising a family.

In town, the Dam, I could wander or ride about carelessly, as whichever way you went, it was a wonderland. Buddhists say peace comes from a lack of wanting, and with a bike with no storage capacity, a wallet on the fade, and a life well lived, I found myself slipping into a life of no wanting. One way to ruin a good holiday, is to remain affixed on shopping, finding that new thing to ‘define’ your ego, better that anyone else’s, back home.It’s arguably a waste of time, and ruins your ability to soak in the experience.   You take the photo, but never actually look at the subject.  I am a late learner in this field, and have not yet mastered the art of not wanting. My wanting usually comprises a daily hunt for a bargain discount salad, on the fresh shelves of a convenience orientated supermarket. This is not too onerous. I have plans to try and expose myself to people, places and opportunities where constant wanting is minimalist. The western world has truly managed to fuck with the heads of just about every participant, keeping everyone in a perpetual pursuit of something or other. I want out. Mind you…that’s wanting.

The sterility and methodical way in which ‘coffee shops’ ( not to be confused with cafes) administered high quality pot was indeed an international phenomena. All the types, grades prices were calibrated, with once famous Thai sticks now rated as cheap, low qual pot , as apparently connoisseurs now only want indoor crops, using $20 seeds, under perfected lighting, using god knows what chemical growing aids. The impact on the Horay Henry’s and Weekend Wally’s over from the UK is a sight in slumberland. Unlike lager louts, the lads who overdo it on the 4 Euro ready rolls, 5 Euro space cake, or 4-10 Euro/ gram of hash or pot, find themselves dossing off in public. This seemingly forms little threat to society, and the Dutch just don’t care….a sure sign of evolved tolerance. Once the tourists have got the pot thing out of their system, they can also notice that liberal, creative societies produce great architecture, fabulous art, and the world’s best combo of public transport and the humble pushbike. Comparing the decayed health of the English to the much fitter Dutch, you see the underlying worth of the pushbike really glows. I love the Dutch. And with personal experience with wonderful friends like Anoesjka, I am a fan.

Paris was another hearty ride south, and wanting to avoid the high cost motorways, I set the GPS to NO TOLLS, and headed into northern France, through the Somme, where those feudal arseholes like Churchill and Hitler cut their teeth. The feel of those killing fields still irked me, and the whole idea of a landscape full of muddy trenches in a European winter, and  being forced into sure suicide at the whistle blow of some obedient, just graduated officer, as you went ‘over the top’ into the machine gun fire,  is surely and hopefully a state of human consciousness that we have evolved from. I hope.

Paris is a beautiful city. The last time I was there was 1974. Back then, I camped in the Bois du Boulogne, in my Kombi, with my sexy girlfriend, and we did things that 20 year olds do, in proliferation, in the pop top roof of my Kombi. I was surprised that this woody campsite still existed, only 5k from the Arc du Triumph, (Napoloen’s tribute to a British Motorcycle).

So again I pitched tent in a summer heat wave, under blue skies, as the new Paris, all steam cleaned and on sale, presented itself unto me.  Gone where all the whores in mink coats that once worked the woody beds of the Bois du Boulogne, making an evening drive home, once an exercise in flasher’s advertising.

What a huge, beautiful city,  Paris>the inner parts at least. It took me a while to get my head around the main markers, like the Eiffel and St Germaine, as the GPS destroys any sense of need to pay attention to signs, and each day was an open shirt and shorts ride, down the rues and avenues of gay Paris.  It’s a wonder the homophobes allow the gay Paris nomenclature, but hey, it works, poof or no poof. As I rode in by Beemer from the north,  my close friends Steve and HB drove from the south, after Steve had ridden all around the south of France shadowing the Tour du France, which commenced the week later. So like media and rider, Steve and Rod took to the streets by $5000 motorbike and $20,000 pushbike, as you do, and with aid of GPS, rode to the training loop, where Steve did laps as I bought groceries. Paris is made for two wheels, as the millions of super scooters, and hot and hard motorbike hardware demonstrates …strewn legally all over the footpaths. I love the way you can park a motorbike anywhere in Paris or Amsterdam, whilst motorists hire Hilton Hotels to house their cars, as Hilton is cheaper that the parking stations.

I should take a minute to update my latest writing point, to add I have again retreated to the cosy tent for the passing of Chamonix’s afternoon thunderstorm. First, it rained harder than I had noticed.  I wrongly thought that the chilled stream beside my grassy recluse, was  water of the melted ice from of the Glacier Bosom, or whatever, above me, but infact the stream also drained grasslands and Christmas tree forests that separate me from this trillion tonnes of glacier breast, sitting above me, in the stunning 4800m fortifications of Chamonix. Accordingly, the stream flooded briefly, taking with it my neatly packaged nicoise salad, and bottle-a-red, as I typed on obviously here in my tent.

The freshly chilled dinner had been kindly retrieved from the jaws of grate, and placed on the bank for its owner’s retrieval. So let’s have a glass, eh? Its bloody expensive here in Western Europe these days, but 34 years ago, they had some dirt cheap, fun wines, that were very cheap. You can’t buy a bottle of soft drink for a Euro here, but you can buy a bottle of red .

Or 1.30 Euros to be exact, or about  $ AUS 2.40. That’s cheap piss. Suspecting it was secretly fine wine, the first glass happily confirmed my suspicion. Given some airing, the price was right. In between was the desired effect.

About my tent. It’s decorated. That light , multicoloured Mexican blanket from San Cristobal carpets the tent, which is as long as it is wide, making sleeping angles generous. Always look for a hollow, not a hump, when placing the sleeping position. Make like a dog. Sleeping is on a wafer, quick blow up mattress, which is surprisingly comfortable for master grasshopper.

The tent has inner and outer linings, green outside for a low profile, but with an inner lining colour that is unknown to mankind,  and which fucks with the cool, outer light filtration, man, making it like living on earth, in 2009.

All small tent occupants, best use clothing for reading pillows, mine in 4 mesh laundry bags, aside its own kayaker’s sealed sack. In bright orange.

The kitchen is on the tent’s left porch, and the pantry is on the right porch. When it rains, a $4 blue sheet extends the verandah to shelter the cook. Hi teck.

Add some books and maps, and we are close to done, as most gear remains in filing figured panniers. After weeks in the saddle every day, you get ya head around bike and camping stuff.

The tent would not survive a snow dump, but it handled its night in the black dog weather of the English Moors with ease. It’s lost some skin in M1 braking exercises. Its lit by LED’s head torches and book reading clip-overs.

Bike rider’s aches, now strengthened, disappear, as new ‘statue man’ issues arise. Sit in seat and make only subtle movements, and do it, fairly still, for hours, and then days, and new adaptations and disciples are needed, like Yoga for Bikers, or Sleeping Bag Yoga. Or whatever> a glass of rabid red.

Paris is, to anyone like me, with an interest in building and architecture, a great view. I like architecture where all the effort in making artful buildings is simply given away as a public view.  No gallery ticket needed. But if ticket to view outstanding architecture were on sale, Paris would be $100 a ticket.  And you would get your money’s worth. It needs to be said, that that the human man hours needed to carefully carve the facades of Paris are mindboggling. The 3D, humanoid, floral or geometric stone carvings are works of art in streets of chewing gum removed. Below the masterpieces, everyone focuses on the bright lights of the CHANEL retail, but Paris from first floor up, through attics upon attics, into Moulin Rouge-esque,  giant portholes, well, you are looking at architectural poetry. Throw in the odd palace or basilica, decorate the gaps with the colours of cafe seated Parisians.  The Parisians de cafe all face the street, as if watching the tennis, and well, they watch. There’s a good look to see in Paris, if you have an eye for subtle quality, and style. Regrettably, global fashion monoculture, has taken something very special away from the once beautifully dressed French and Italians, as everyone must get casual, Billabong makes billions, and some of France’s distinguished heritages in fashion, get lost in the blur of global and corporate fashion.

Paris has its fare share of the Iluminati’s nod and a wink symbolism, not the least being another original pyramid topped obelisk, in centre court,  but compared to the demonic Westminster, Paris is tame, Da Brown notwithstanding. Paris is however as big a player as they come, on matters Rothchilds, for example. It was very odd seeing Murdoch’s Times ribbing the current Rothchilds with a page one story of how the Rothchilds family so benefited from slavery, despite all their paid intuitional contributions to the contrary,  in news just this week. Their time in total secrecy is ending.

The worst Parisienne Iluminati offering is recent, and placed  over Princess Di’s death spot, where (Sum-of the-Aryan) Queen Seminaris’s torch, aka the Statute of Liberty torch, is set into a pentagonal star. This symbol leaves a sort of ‘we were here’ calling card, to those understanding the Di story, and her battle with a family, a family with all the hidden manners of a reptile.

Biking around is a world unto itself. Being, or needing to be above the weather, good or bad, is a good exercise in acceptance. It makes for a brazen, let’s do it kind of attitude. It’s a good thing to know you can remain outside of the ‘system’, of you own accord, albeit, if only by  by polythene and steel. Independence when travelling, if nothing else, is cheap and easy by bike. Bikes are not bad on fuel, by the Beemer has been guzzling fuel when tyres were wrong, so I am yet to master fuel use, but a new set of smoother tyres would be a start, so we will see what tyres cost in cheaper Eastern Europe.  Truth be known, small new common rail diesel cars are more fule efficient than big bikes. Beemers are all pretty sturdy, but they have issues. I use an added rubber chock to seat the side stand higher, and to prompt, ‘chocs-away’   before takeoff. I would like handlebars 40m more rearwards, and higher. The fuel gauge is getting misleading, making fuel stops like prostrate problems. No rear chain is great. The boxer engine sound is great, and with 1100cc, i mean, the fuca has grunt. If a guy tries it on with a sports car up the arse, in the outside motorway lane, headlights on, you can throw it down a gear, roll on the full throttle fuel injection, and even with 60kg of kit, the sports car hasn’t got a chance…. as from any speed, the big bore BM’s blister.

If ya wanted to see Europe cheap,  do it by a small commercial micro van, leave the signage on as camouflage, and sleep where you stop,  staying outside of the new rules that push all vans into parks at $70 night.

The GS is high and mighty, and is quick to take a fall in a carpark. I’ve lost her, several times, always avoidable, always giving me the shits, the panniers a hammering, and the passersby, some new obscenities to dwell on. Did you read that? I called it, ‘her’. That’s a worry.

I rode on through the ALPS, trying to avoid the toll ways, by tailgating trucks through their auto lanes, until the mother of all tolls caught me in a combo of border guard and toll gate, to pass through France, under 11k of Mont Blanc, into Italy. The G8 was being hosted by the modern day Mussilini, BertaTVini, and so Italy was watching it’s borders. My in and out of Italy ride saw chilled out EyeTye cops, wave and point at me, confusing me, until I noticed the ‘chocs away’ choc had just done a drag up the Alps, and what was once wedge edge, was now bullnose.

Again, what kinda of world have we made, if everyone wants to detonate the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations. Its kinda suggests that the worlds most powerful nations have, for some very good reasons, enemies at every border. Chief fascist host, BertaTVini, along with his Sarcosy-up mate, along depressant Gordon Brown, and fraud Obama, would have you believe that the reason why the world wants to see their carcasses hanging on the gates of town, is because the, the other guy issues..the ‘ists’….those ‘ists’ are bad, but without manufactured, ‘-ists’…. there would be no need for their G8 agenda.  The G8, they are perfect. The G8 never puts a foot wrong, besides, the G8’s foot is busy…holding down the neck of the world.

Anyway, expensive tunnel tolls, and G8 meetings aside, the instant view of Italy out the other side of the Mont Blanc tunnel was a shock…different weather, different geography, and pasta. The Alps are a splendour in their sudden up-ness, and jugged edges. At 4800m high for mountaineers atop Mont Blanc, they should note not juts mountaineers, but guys on bikes get to 4800m in the Andes. The Andes, now there is a grand set. Its all very pleasant around 30C in southern summery france, Alps os no Alps.

The adventure sport guys are out hiking, biking, the tour de France in away, the kayakers are yaking, the mountaineers are mounting….its game on in the Alps. Pity the ALP can’t learn from the real Alps. In Chamonix, there are lifts that high that St Peter takes a levy. A couple of dozen paragliders guard the gates of heaven at 4000m up. A giant glacier looks like the poster from a death by Ice Age 3, hanging over the chalet packed valleys. They sure have taken up skiing in a big way, with the added cash from the debt binge. The snow fields are edged with the usual development scars, built along beautiful authentic alpine villages, in a blur of Swiss-meets-Italian meets French, home building styles, agreeing in an alpine style devoid of borders that gives us timber lofts, wide eavs, and painted shutters….all that is missing is the glass snow cone covering.

Even the flowers in the window boxes are postcard.

It’s good riding around the s country. Packs of guys out on s super bikes have passed me on wide, mountain-side sweepers doing 140k and accelerating, their arses on the outside of their race seats, and their super wider, low height tyres, sticking like shit to tarmac. The views are sensational, albeit sobering , remembering the death fall of Steve’s pushbike colleague’s, over the Armco last week, and as such, one tends not gaze away to much. The best mind for riding, is presence. Stay in the now, take it all in, don’t pass judgement, just accept and enjoy the ride, whatever comes. ‘It’s all good’…to quote a modern masterpiece of surfers wordage.

I camped alongside an alpine river, in the woods, outside of Braincon,  just within French alps again, and had to stay 2 nights because of the breath taking scenery, trout 2m from the tent. Plus, oil needed changing, and back rest fitted. I noticed a swimming ‘noodle’ , bought it, and added a fat outer hard foam, at 180mm wide. I then jammed a chord through its guts, and strapped it down, just where your spine exists the bike seat. This adds some immediate spinal leverage help, right at the crucial rider’s stress point, and it works so well, it costs so little, i should patent it. I’ve already dreamed up how I could use my foam sandwich experience to make a whole new front and rear pannier set, with inbuilt inverter, 3 litre water storage, laptop slide lock and seal, and a stove at working height. And when you fall and break it, it’s just out with some fibreglass tape, epoxy and foam, and all on location.

The bike disgorged some manky oil today…..I  resolved i will be nicer to the bike’s engine, with fresh supermarket oil, more regularly. I still need to change the gearbox and diff oil. I like the way you can understand your bike, in times where computerised servicing has made everyone’s car a mystery to the home maintenance man….when you buy a new car, you kiss good bye for the need for a home workshop. I favour selling my chip filled French car, and just owning one simple bike, next year. And I will do the maintenance, and i will understand the damn thing. That’s a revivalist idea.

Bike life is big. I’ve sort of re-sorted my approach to touring, in a give-in, tune in, drop-out kinda way. I don’t look for backpacker or camp sites to head to, anymore. I just go with  whatever time, place and thing, is going down. I’m assisted in this carefree method by a never ending array of little international tent signs, 2k…or whatever…just take ya pick. Ah the marvels of southern France in the summertime.  And they are not all gaudy slide pool van parks. Some are very woody. As now…. somewhere halfway to today’s, who cares destination Avignon. I’m in an orchid beside yet another river, and the odd car passes every twenty minutes, heading into a pine gorge, with what seems like the original Roman road weaving around its serpentine bends. Real French Provencal farm houses, with grapes up the walls, dot the valleys.

And on matters serpentine. I’ve just knocked off a latest well argued hypothesis, that the huge array of serpentine imagery in history, myth, old religion and last nights dreams, whilst carrying a library of tales, is, in a more modern and alternate view, the intertwining double helix of DNA. Like snakes around a doctors sign. Some now say, it’s the DNA, the designer, neo quartz crystal, that gives access to all that is known, via the other-side,  and can, in an even more new theory, contribute to our visual access to this dimension, this level of the Matrix.  The coin as to a cathedral understanding of atomic density, when an object needs to be seen by the eye,  in terms of brutal physics,  well, there really is not enough  ‘molecular density’ to avoid making this screen see through.  But that’s a whole side track.

TO understand the history of the dragon, or serpent tales, I’m ploughing through Pinkham’s, The Return of the Serpents of Wisdom.  Now in my storage and well read ,is “2012 Return of Queztcoatl” …the winged serpent gig, but as well, a consciousness shift observation. These books are a wild read, at the edge of the game, and contain a very interesting hypotheses. When the layers of  evidence by way of indigenous, mythological and religious views are  overlaid with what’s new in quantum physics, and molecular DNA a new cosmic rational is emerging . Science, just as much religion, must free itself from its silo’d ways, where no one is allowed a full spectrum view. Doctrines founded on unchallenged presuppositions too often make sciences, such as anthropology, useless .

Me?  The universe? I reckon it’s a fun, multi dimensioned eternity evolution game, where the score is kept in love.  DNA is the decipher molecule of this ‘arrangement of energy’ we are in… and , I observe, things are changing at an exponential rate, and along with it the consciousness, and I smell a bigger game afoot. Plus, I love a good game.

And there is a big but silly game playing out on the French Riviera. I changed my typing school to the beach, at St Tropez. I rolled down the slopes from the haute Provence yesterday, watching as oaks changed to olives, and wheat morphed to fields of lavender. The GPS dutifully wound me through the centuries old back streets of a dozen little Provencal villages, where I would indulge in coffee, buy some pain, oops, bread, and with it, some of the bacterially enhanced local cheese…soft style. This would mean off with the gloves and coat , out with the side stand choc, and the bike was left standing alongside some centre plaza fountain, whilst I did as French do, and sat around and chat…or read. It’s the real deal French farming thing in Provence, with many of the once populace villages sold out to British tree changers, the odd assortment of organic types, mixed in with brash, new money wankers, whose new homes are coated in the  standard washed apricot, but not from of local oxides, but from Granosite, in latex based plastic paint, like their fat wives makeup.  But at least, overall, the place is real.

St Tropez, on the other hand, is an interesting mess. Rightfully the coolest place on earth, in 1960, St Tropez is now, the show and tell kindergarten for the poor suffering rich whose childish mission in life, is to arrive at show and tell, with a better and bigger toy story. The rich really don’t know how bad they have it. Aside of living in a permanent state of wanting, it’s so hard keeping up. The teenagers are the only ones left with anything like sexy bodies, unlike the image of Brigette Bardo in,’ And God Made Woman’. The blokes are spending up big, to attract the non existent Bardo,  and are perpetually challenged by other rich guys, who, as soon as you have launched your 100 foot with $10M, some upstart Russian cleptocrat, pulls up alongside with 200ft and $50m worth, bedecked in Russian dolls of the unsavoury flavour. The costs are huge. The sex is lousy. The relationships are a mess. And no matter how much a guy spends on label brands to decorate the missus, his eyes are always on other arse. May god save the poor rich.

It’s a traffic jam of Ferraris and black expensive cars, paying $20/hr to park in St Tropez. The cute Provencal style fishing village that was once the real St Tropez, is now a spec in the middle of an ugly development boom and mindless retail overdose, and the village’s architecture is lost behind boats bigger than blocks of flats. The floating flats must be seen stern to, so the ice creaming licking public can get a suitable dose of jealousy, to match the jealousy of the rich guy paying for the charter, who sees bigger yachts next door, and cute arse everywhere, but in his grubby hand. What a pointless exercise in futility. When will humans wake up to the masturbation,  that is staying in a permanent state of wanting. Needless however, it all makes a for a grand spectacle.

Wanting nothing, carrying my own lunch and dinner, after a trip to the patisserie, the view of St Tropez is fascinating if nothing else. Riding its streets with the most travel hardy kit in town, seemed to impress the toy boy mentality of the macho types, whose local god is 2000hp on both port and starboard sides of the 50 foot Cigarette. Weird Buelli bikes, unseen before sports cars, and freshly launched mega yachts mark the end of the latest debt binge cycle. Behind the fake whitened smiles, there is a fair dose of oh shit, I’ve overdone it, financial crisis.

The public believe public guys like Bill Gates are the richest guys on earth, but little do they know, the seriously rich, those who for example control the Bank of England and Bank of America, never let on how filthy rich they are, nor who they really are, as they quietly hire hoards to set up foundations and philanthropies to conceal their dirty deeds, and  with it, Gates slaying mega wealth.

In tune with my, who-gives-a-shit attitude to tonight’s campsite, I left my hunt for spot to drop, till after dinner, knowing campsites where everywhere. I was right about availability, but wrong about price, when quoted $100 to simply pitch a small tent a few miles around the bay from St Tropez. I add, for $100, it was untidy, unmown, cram packed, and fronted a packed highway one side, and degraded beach the other. With a fuck that, polite no thanks, I headed inland, to be robbed a lot less, to camp in an even uglier campsite. I have concluded, from now many camp site experiences, that the more you pay, the worse the campsite. Many try to get their annual dose of nature by camping in Europe, but get as connected to nature as effectively as a colostomy bag .  Shit is hard to contain. The whole modern world is becoming denied of an enduring, experiential nature connection, especially in the dreadfully overpopulated Europe, where maybe it’s a saving grace that the fertility rate is plummeting. I’m studying the Pinkham book that assembles all the views and history of the Serpent, or Dragon based belief systems, which have been, and remain at the core of all the spiritual/ religious influences across earth deep into millennia, as well as being the inside understanding that gives the Iluminati the jump, and I am left wondering whether the Aryan, population culling agenda of the black side, serpent agenda, is so black after all? Maybe we are on a planet designed for 2 billion but carrying 6 billion? Hands up those 4 in 6 we need to exterminate? Oops.

Here on the beach in St Tropez, humanity is on display in all its overpopulated manifestations. Gone are the mythical bold and beautiful of St Tropez, replaced by the usual DNA mix of ugly and attractive, as much a product of age as anything, and with 60 and 70 years olds displaying their fat and wrinkles in their nude obsession, and the mums and the kids and the dads all just trying to make sense of life, in their short holiday from the office, it really looks like humanity as just as diverse and confused on the beach at St Tropez, as they are in traffic, trying to pick up the kids. ‘We’re on a road to nowhere,’ comes to mind, but the slurp of the ice cream, and the warmth of the sun on your back, hides the confusion for another day.

I took a swim. It was cold, and clear. 34 years ago, I watched on amused as Italians kitted themselves in diving gear and spear guns to get the big one. From the Med. In town today, I visited a shop selling all manner of guns, pistol crossbows,  spear guns and fishing knives. I wondered, as I did 34 years ago, if there was one living thing out there, that Europe hasn’t already killed, other than cows they give the bolt to, by the hour. There certainly are no fish in the Med, either now, or 34 years ago, bar two very nervous looking slimy mackerel. In 42 years, they say all ‘table fish’ ex the ocean will be nonexistent.We kid ourselves that the solution is in ‘sustainable farming’ of fish, as we deny the truth of where the food for the fish farms come from, as it’s the same food that feed the wild fish already.  If you take giant krill seeking vacuum cleaners to the Arctic waters, and start sucking, you just hasten the end to the worlds oceanic life, from the base up. That apocalyptic shift, or aliens on the white house lawn gig, or whatever: it maybe ain’t such a bad idea, long term, if it happens soon. Personally, I go for the post 2012 paradigm shift gig, where we regain our cosmic, access all areas, back stage pass, and become cool as a humanity once again, tuned into the truth, whole truth,  and nothing but the truth. But who knows what will happen.

With about  1,000,000 horse power of mega yachts parked by the hundred off this beach, at least if we have another Dunkirk, we will have the boats to pick up the retreating army, all before morning tea.

In France, they have a very un-Australian attitude to egalite, liberte and fraternite on the beach. Half the beach is effectively franchised to slumberland beach umbrellas and waiter service. Resorts get exclusive use of their riparian beach zone. Boaties paying to come alongside a public wharf are charged in units of thousands per night, to dock. The water front here is not a public space. This I do not agree with. The ocean is the one place on earth, where ‘possession’ is hopefully remaining intangible. I would  likely be wrong about my aspiration of ocean egalite, as even my own greedy Howard led country, moved its international waters boundary hundreds of miles north into former Indonesian waters, when it could see the opportunity to pretend to save the Timorese, so it could move on and grab the massive oil and gas within the undersea area. The new oceanic boundary forced Timorese tenure back to the beach head. This was all done in the guise of saving the poor Timorese from the evil Indonesians, when infact Gough Whitlam and all his predecessors had been in cahoots with indo military junta. Current PM Rudd is a  worse nightmare for Indo justice, as in his diplomatic duties days, he was posted under a famous Australian foreign minister, who was in deep with the Indo generals, and infact, the Aussie posting where Rudd lived, was just across the road from the Indo consulate, so beer and BBQ’s with the neighbouring diplomats wedded Rudd as drinking mate to the very Indo generals-esque who were so deeply behind the massacres in Timor, Aceh, and still today, on the Indonesian controlled side of New Guinea. So my lectures to the French about freedom of the oceans have an eroded foundation.

What is it about the lure of living beachside, whether here in the South of France, or Florida, or our Gold Coast, that tends to bring out the most unfulfilled desire in humanity…the searching but never finding phenomena. Why is it, that these boom town exoduses to the beach can so effectively ruin, overdevelop and trivialise life so successfully? My own once ‘sleepy fishing village’, hometown of Port Douglas, is as classic an example as any. And I am a guilty participant. When the dream sellers get marketing budgets as fat as we saw in the last debt binge, they can soak the media with dreamy visions of topless girls standing in sarongs looking wistfully over tropical sunsets, where, with just a few signatures on this contract, (press hard please, 3 copies), you will alter your life to live in paradise forever. But paradise is just another traffic jam, despite the Bently’s 500hp, and no sooner has the developer delivered the new apartment, than the dream itself disappears, and you wake up in debt, in traffic, and in as much shit, as in the urban lifestyle you kidded yourself you left behind. THE LIFE OF PERMANETLTY WANTING.   It’s wanting.

Its a lovely afternoon here in the sunshine, and it’s been a few months since I enjoyed a seaside, Caribbean azure swim. But I hope the Adriatic coast isn’t such a mess as this overcooked French Riviera. Its tits have sagged. The cut and tuck has turned its eyes into slits. And it can’t get laid, even after the sale to end all Persian rug sales, it’s still unlaid.

Whilst the Med held a great reputation for sailing, as did the eastern Caribbean, the truth is that both places are overpriced, overused, and overcooked. If your goal in life it to show off your new $300,000 wrist watch, and the ‘stuff’ that accompanies it, you will maybe find the image of what you want in the Riviera. If you just want your watch to tell you the time, you could waste a lot less time pursing the $300,000 watch, by giving the whole show and tell game away.  Instead, go to the San Blas…the beaches are better, the boaties are real, the locals are even more real, and the cost is a tenth. There are no traffic jams in the San Blas’s capital, Carti. There isn’t a single car there.

So by day here in France, it’s a banana sliced onto muesli with water, honey and Maca powder for breakfast…as all these foods can survive in hot panniers. Lunch is a camembert and avocado roll, made on the some park bench somewhere, and at night, its either rice risotto style, with tuna and camembert, or pasta…again, all determined by what carries well outside a fridge. Given the need to get bread rolls fresh, as is French bread culture,  aided by no bread preservatives,  so it last one day, I deem it culturally necessary to shop daily for bread and cheese. I don’t eat much bread (gluten) or cheese (acidic animal fat),back home, but then, when one is on  a budget smaller than a Bardo bikini, it’s a case of …‘When in Rome’. And besides, weird Provencal soft cheeses, and the fresh loafs that accompany it, are a simple delight. And they are cheap.

There is a world famous, or so i deem, bike ride to be had along the Riviera. Its the height of European summer, its school holidays, and all or France, and most of the rest of Europe, have come to play on the Mediterranean plages and lidos of France and Italy. There is mile after mile of what constitutes a beach, covered, from east to west, in umbrellas and deck chairs.

No sooner than I had  pulled up, just inside the Italian boundary today, and as I was decanting myself  some bikers hot tea, above and over the wall to the beach below, I could start to here pop disco coming from below. There in the shallows stood about 100 women and girls, and 6 or so men, in their whatever swimwear, and they were all happily doing morning Macarena exercise class, led by dancers on mike, in Marg  Simpson wigs. Only in Italy.

Ya’ve gotta love the Italians. Even 34 years ago, they were the most fun. And in high summer, as they all clamber to the sunshine to reclaim their olive skin rights, they are, of their own doing, a sexy lot. Plus, they are motorbike mad. And by mad, I mean mile after parking lot mile, of beachside scooters, super scooters, and ferocious bikes. Everyone, but everyone is on two wheels.  Being in motion on two wheels deems you, in Italy at least, the right to illegally overtake in packs, it allows you to park anywhere you like, show off ya latest squeeze, you name it, bikes and scooters are essential hip kit, in the eyetie summer. So my, ‘removalist truck‘ as Mike Gabour got in one, insultingly, about my bomber bike,  nonetheless makes a bit of a visual impact, and I notice the odd head twist with a, ‘…did you see all the shit on that bike’… look. There is a sea of hip new scooters on attack, but no one but the Italians can make bike with spunk. Ya, ya, mein BMW has now taken zee vorld by GS, but the sexy bike remains an Italian icon… starting with little monsters like Ducati. Aren’t Buelli eyetie? And Moto Guzzi, and MV Augusta, with Laverda  remaining to be revived in Triumph, and a sea of deadly handling micro’s, as when you are young and only allowed 50cc of power, it’s amazing what you can squeeze out of 50cc with new light tek.

So instead of simply going through the hills by tunnel, and over the valleys by flyover, I took the 1960’s route along the coast, as there is hardly a bit of it that is not a visual, aromatic and G force winner. Architectural gems, with faded green shutters against terracotta shaded walling, set of by sandstone toned edging, wove a common theme amoungst the pines in full aromatic blume, with azure bays below, bedecked with anchorages and marinas by the mile. It was like riding a never ever land of Rose Bay S’s. I have never seen so much boat hardware anywhere like this. It seems everyone in the debt binge has bought a boat. Billionaires have pumped out $30M white boats,  built at a rate up from  a couple a year, to one a week. There is now little difference in size, between a small cruise ship, and  huge private ‘yacht’. (I dislike, and we should ban the way millionaires deem their greasy, power guzzling motor boats as ‘yachts’).

Dutch Royal Huissman are the world’s premier yacht builders, to my old fashioned mind, and last year they launched 53m and I guess $120M in a yacht styled in the ways of the all action, US east coast Gloucester sailing fishing boat, with a few modern inclusions, like the biggest carbon fibre rig on earth, when launched. It was called Meteor, with Edwardian trimmed and varnished cabins, finished to levels of perfection that amaze even the expert. With a real yacht shape, a full keel, and the world’s smartest technology behind the kit, when it laid done 40,000 miles in just two years, it has flexed its mighty sailing muscle at all sorts of traditional mega-glam, yacht series. It’s huge. The crew on these boats have seen some boom years, as new laws and insurances have made opportunities for the likes of the well qualified Barrier Reef trained sailors, whom all took a Master this or that qualification, at a time when both mega yachting, and new regs both boomed together, putting many happy go lucky  Aussie boaties, suddenly on big salaries, with regular flights home, all insurances and expenses  and holidays.. So chatting to the female Kiwi boson of the 53m Meteor was fun.

The industry, is of course, in the second tier hit of, ‘oh shit, the party is over’, recession. If you had something like $200,000E to hire Meteor for a week, you would have a lot more choice these days, than just one or two available mega yachts…. anything from 3 to 8 levels of them. One recently launched, with a bow sloping backwards to the stern, like a cheese knife, had 4 levels of ‘60’s office block put atop the submarine style hull, and from its sides, many big floating toys were being unloaded. Wealth: the world has never seen as much of it, as its can see today, especially here on the Riviera. Pity the Golden Calf has to be sacrificed to the smelters again.

The winding ride itself can’t be left unmentioned, as the bends are like Grand Prix roads, some literally, and in a land where they make Ferrari and MV Augusta, it’s a sin against the daring, to make the nearly all whole coastal Riviera ride restricted to 50k. But with the amount of humanity using it, it clogs in a an instant, as someone needs to edge into a reverse park, and I really think riding the Riviera fast, like we could once do, is now left to winter, after midnight, on a points free licence. I basically sat back, and said fuc the speed, enjoy the feel and the view, even if all day, barely made 150 miles.

I just set the GPS to find a campsite coming up, took a pick, then another, and ended up, both  last nights and now, camped on old elevated and stepped  olive groves, modified to campsites, full of summer made Europeans, blisteringly glad to be out of the cold and dark.

The view over the Mediterranean below is pine and olive framed. I had a beer at the lido this evening, (and Hover’d the bar munchies, like a typical, irrepressible, bum traveller) as the 6 pm beach goers enjoyed full sun,  and the DJ was warming up,  and the beach showers alongside beside the bar, added sparkle to the exiting wet bodies.  All was good.

Further down the road, Monaco arrived. They say one of the best motorbike rides, here on earth, is along the Italian Riviera. That was before the 50 k speed limit was introduced, to reduce the number of prangs, from cars trying to find a park. Miles and miles of parked cars, match the miles and miles of sardine beach umbrellas and as far as making speed through the magnificent sweeping turns, and indulgent views, you can just forget it. Besides, the views are so sensational, why rush? Each new headland brings  vista of geographical alcellence, architectural mastery, and it’s all bejewelled with my favourite material decoration> boats.

Italians are obsessed with beach culture, as were the Aztecs were with human sacrifice. Instead of rolling beheaded heads down the stairs, the Italians send tall and tanned, and young and lovely things, gracefully down the steps to the beach, where these Italians, reclaim their olive skin rights, on masse.

Firenze blessed me with a mansion that had turned into hostel, and grown into a camping ground, only 4 k form the Duomo. Nothing like pitching the tent in the former baron’s rose garden. The city itself? Well, you could not, I suppose, ignore the superlatives of Renaissance art and cultural excellence, that define Florence….you could not help but admire the Medici’s  magical Iluminati architecture, but given the whole fucking tourist world has got to tick the box called Florence, and given the sheer volume of crass, ice cream licking tourists, now days including Serbians, Russians and Koreans, and in my opinion, lest just say, I’m just glad I saw it all 34 years before.   A million tourists can wreck anything.

So, with and overdose of the crass meets masse, i tuned the GPS in on the other side of Italy, and headed for a region completely of the wives-who-do lunch list, and abandoned the Tuscan orthe Provencal, and headed to a place now one knows, called Cupramontana…. about 240 k north east of Rome, in rolling farmlands, where the real Italy still exists.

I admit, I was joining in with German friends doing the EU exodus, who had moved from one of the dozens of all-business, cold and miserable, northern European cities, to buy and old stone farm house in sunny Italy, where the animals once lived in the now renovated kitchen. So I suppose, German and Australian yachties, drinking $2/litre, farmers-own wine, and indulging in the mastery of real Italian food and produce, is not really an all-Italian thing, but hey, there were no tourists in sight. Anywhere around the world, you can find a deli selling fine Italian cheese, wine and assorted wonders, but nowhere on earth, is the food and produce as delicious, fresh and masterful, as in rural Italy itself.  Fresh bread is about timing, not preservatives. Wild and weird cheese, is about bacterial immediacy, not refrigeration. Wine is best at 5 Euros for 5 litres, without the marketing, chemicals and 5000k transport, when it’s bought from the famer next door.

Lunch, is best at 10 Euro’s for several courses, in a packed worker’s restaurant, where there is no menu, just today’s selections. Its best to drink the cheap but excellent wine with lunch, and have a siesta snooze, as it ain’t dark till after 9 anyway, so a morning spurt, a middle of the day laze, and a spruced up evening are, in my opinion,  a superior way of living.

I was helping my friend, Peter Kaiser, and his cast , but never cast-off,  of girlfriends and ex’s, spanning ages from late teens to late forties,  all go about la dolce vita. This, as an artist builder, and Caribbean sailor, on perpetual annual cycle, makes for a  lifestyle  rich in charm, even if a bit cash poor. Summers for Peter are spent renovating old stone farm houses, whilst the European winter is spent between San Blas and Cartegena, either in a sensational hilltop farm, or  a glorious Sparkman and Stephens, classic 50 footer, in the azure San Blas. Some people have it tough. Peter Kaiser isn’t one. Pete was very successfully in the glamorous fashion photography business, but now is more busy with building, boats and babes, the essential 3 B’s.

I’ve taken a few lesson is stone wall building, adding mortar where once only mud held home together. The many rocks that once annoyed the ploughs, have all migrated into walls , most 600mm thick , after a few thousand years of cultivation. The old oaks, they serve today, both as shade trees, and as ancient beams, holding the floor above, above. Lavender and roses go bloom’n berserk.  A vegie garden here, without mulch or fertilizer, and buried in weeds, just oozes life and taste, on the sheer botanical exuberance of the Italian summer.

I weeded Pete’s vegie garden, where even snails have so much to eat, they barely dent the lettuce. I soon fell into the refined work, play sleep regime of the real Italy, like a high diver splashing down into fresh marshmallow.

In the best seller, Eat, Prey Love, the travelling author, over indulges on food, here in Italy, before Ashram’ing out, and then getting laid in Bali. According to her book’s theory, my trip has just begun. Eat, eat, eat and drink, is my way here, and having earlier dropped , I guess, 15kg with some Peruvian parasites, I am as capable of consuming food, as is an empty local silo,  in filling itself with wheat. Pour it in.

If you have read thus far, congratulations….as this chapter is already too long, and should have been posted weeks ago. To post it, I need a good internet connection and several hours to upload the photos and roughly tweak their position . But Europe has very few internet opportunities, bugger all internet cafes, and those that exist, are a rippoff.. The third world has far better public acces to the internet. Here, if a hostel or camping zone has wi fi, thye charge sometimes $8′hr for access, compared to dirt poor, quater the price Peruvian of Mexican accommodation, which provides the same thing for free. So if nothing else, this is my own diary exercise. In a wrld of far to much information, if you have read thus far, well done, ta.

The simple delights of a week in the Italian farm lands, changed pace, the day i mounted up, and headed to Rome. The process of the long bike ride, has become a ritualist does of fun, aided by warm weather, and always fascinating back routes, that the GPS takes me through, if given the right, chiled out instructions. Like the ride to Rome, that somehow found me on lcountry laneways, dissecting village markets, and an abundance of farming harvest enough to make you into a pasta, wine and cheese fanatic. Italina sure know how to do mobile makets, with caravans of fold out shade, all hydraulically powered from the roof of the van, or in the case of the deli van, more like some stainless transformer toy, ona grand scale, where the curved glass displays have as much gastronomic abundance as pregnant tits.

Purple is this seasons colour, and Italy, as the world over, has given in to Chinese imports masquerading as chic Italian fashion, this year, in purple. Accordingly, the market vans have racks full of purple this, and purple that. It   was the same in Paris, as i discovered, when shopping for a purple handbag with HB. Interestingly, here in 2009, purple has another meaning, and is the colour of the spirit, or Holy Spirit, if you like the line your local bishop will take, as he’s beena purple sash wearer for years. Even the orange people morphed to purple after all their orange attire stained the undies, and eventually went manky.

On the instruction of my GPS, I was told all raods lead to Rome, and just chill out, and one way or another. By lunch, I will be in Rome, so enjoy the coffew, buy some fruit, and while you are at it, why not buy a radio. I owned a radio station once, and have avidly listened to radio for 50 years, ever since i was given a crystal radio and ear piece from Hong Kong, in 1950 something, which amazes me to this day, by producing  radio programme, without a battery in sight.Ya gotta love radio, the oldest of all he electronic media, and the only medis that gets you when in the shower, the car, the kitchen and the workplace, like some perma background, for the subconscious. Anyway, for $11, i had a piece of cute junk, that given the right conditions, could listen to a million different bands, from the world over. But when in Rome, listen to the world’s most passionate version of radio: Italian radio. Its like Italy is in permanent start of romantic wanting.

Rome, like all the big feature tourism destinations, was amuck with rubbernecks. I just wanted to drop by the Vatican for a chat with the Rat singer , me mate the Masonic , Germanic, , Pope, but apparently 100,000 other had the same idea, so much so that his Holimess, only sticks his tortise head out the window once a month. Not a very social guy.

Sure enough, to my enquiring eyes, there was the serpent symbology taking pride of place, smack in the middle of St Peter’s square, all over the Sumerians phallic obelisk that stakes its claim to pride of place in the all the world’s most important public places, with 99% of the population having no idea what it all means.

I downed yet more sensational pizza, watching as catholic priests made their way around Vatican city like stockbrokers taking a quick lunch. The bike got parked in the usual audacious spots, for some iconic papal biker photos. I made my way up stair sets, thinking I was on the Spanish steps, but them remembering where the real ones where, and had to walk two sets.

I got stuck in Rome 34 year ago, awaiting, as travellers did back thenm telegraphic money transfers, vai American express, and for a week or two, myself and my girlfriend bused into Rome from our kombi campsite, to line up at Amx, to be told to come back tomorrow, and in the process, we sat on the Spanish steps quite a lot. We threw two coins in a dozen fountains, and I shopped for killer shoes, on sale of course, and eyed some suits, which  when, finally purchased, back in 1974, ( via a sale in Napoli) saw me promoted to director of a million dollar an hour company before I turned 30. It’s amazing what looking the part can do.

But lunch in Rome, a quick hello to the Pope, the Colosseum, and a few chic shops, and I was outta there. Naples and Sorrento was ahead, and a nice ride in the cool of the evening seemed a hip idea. So I high tailed it south, via a method I normally ban, namely, pay to ride motorways, and after a congested start, as we wove our way around a tangle of bent cars, and a biker lying on the road with his ankle at the wrong angle, it was time to sit in a crowd of vehicles doing ridiculous speeds, eating up the miles to Napoli in minutes. I tailgated a car through the ‘tele’ pay line, apprehensively, with a ‘send me the bill’ attitude, knowing, or hoping at least, the UK registered address of my GB plates would not lead back to home.

Naples was a mess. As always. But I was not going to miss it , as Naples is also dripping in character. The first time I drove through Naples, with a steaming hangover, our Kombi with bikes on the roof rack, had been mistaken for a Tour de Italia support crew, and we were given the aid of about 1000 Caribineri, who waved us through one intersection after another, as though we were Caesar’s security car. On my return, I was not so lucky. It’s a 30k speed limit down the main feeder road to Sorrento. But you are lucky if you make a speed of over 10k per hour. No one in Naples has the seeming authority to wheel in the chaos, and for example, ban cars parking on the tiny streets that constitute Naples’ cholesterol lined main artery. It’s as though the fast, modern, and now rich Italian governors, have given up on Naples generations ago, with a view that its’ not worth repairing, as Mt Vesuvius will blow sooner or later, turning Naples into Pompeii in an instant. It took couple of hours to knock off 250k from Rome to Naples, but seemingly longer to make 20k’s progress in Naples. Its obligatory to eat Napoloi pizza, which costs little,,and tastes large. With yet another out of character, short, sharp, shot of caffeine, Sorrento beckoned. My family is married into a Sorrento family, and back 34 years ago, we Davis’s all did an enthusiastic Italian Job on ourselves, to integrate our Celtic blooded Australian BBQ ways, into the more stylish and certainly more tasty ways of Italy, which back then, was the world’s style capital, before the EU and globalisation sold out Italian style, to Chinese imports.

34 year back , I had camped in a terraced olive grove, on the cliffs overlooking the bay of Naples and the Isle of Capri. More songs, poems and romantic tales, are told of Capri, than just about any other island on earth. Despite the fact that I was really struggling to figure out which part of Sorrento was what, I managed to find my old campsite, where the Kombi and Greek girlfriend Athena Vasilou and I,  had luxuriated. In 2009, the campsite was packed with mindless motor homes, but the front row terrace was gratefully reserved for solo tents, so there overlooking the cute harbour below, I pitched tent, to the hourly sound of church bells. The continual wild swinging of the bells in the tower, is an undertaking of either Sorrento tourism, or some crazed priest, or both. Its punctuated with the odd evening rocket,  exploding with such gusto, that it would send the average Lebanesse diving for cover.

Sorrento is fabulous, and it seemingly invented tourism well before the idea had even been thought of. Sorrento should be heritage listed as the grandfather of Mediterranean tourism. I shopped for yet more tuna pasta ingredients, and stroled the streets and waterfront for a day, trying to rejuvenate my memories, as nearby campers made their tent. Gone were the days were you could sit around in idle bliss, consuming your way through meal after veal of wine and pasta, as the Euro, and its inwards focus, has made the cost of indulgence in Italy well out of the affordable range for non Europeans. It seems in the process of equalizing currency between firm Francs, a zillion Lira, and an array of worthless Eastern bloc toilet paper, Europe lost the plot when it comes to the valuation of its currency. Europe has become so expensive, but it doesn’t even see it.  Nonetheless, it’s nothing for Greeks to make 600-900Euros a month, and millions across Europe still must live of what amounts to $US10-$15 hour, yet still, the cost of everything is stifling…hence, more DIY tuna pasta shopping for Rod. In the high season, the prime campsites want $AUS40 just to pitch a tent, charging to simply park the motorbike. Its a rippoff, and Europe is headed for a big fall, when China and India flexes its potential. There are roughly 500million living in the EU, and that is but a fraction of the billions in China and India alone. Change is coming, fast.

There are some very old, and now rather rare crafts coming from Naples and Sorrento, that the Chinese cant replicate. If it weren’t for the fact that some old timers still keep at their old craft out of habit, I am sure this part of special culture would die. I refer to the very special timber inlaying work endemic to Sorrento, and with it, the fine floral china that is made, in Naples. The detail and super fine realism of the china bouquets, despite carrying the name china, is something the Chinese cannot do. How on earth these  bsuper skilled crafts still make it to the shops in times when a campsite costs $40, is beyond me.

By the way, if you are thinking of touring Europe by van, as some 300,000 Australians did at any one time during the ‘70’s, you can forget the ‘Europe on $10 Day’ concept, as its well over $100 night simply to park a van in a high season campsite these days. My advice to my kids, to take on Europe, would be to buy a super small delivery van, based on a Barina sized base, and pretend not to be a tourist, parking in back streets or beachfronts to sleep. Leave any previous signage on the van, as a disguise. Gone are the days when you could pull up your Kombi anywhere, and crash. The discovery that you could turn a home into a motorhome, has fucked the life by van, well and truly.  It was once nothing to find 60 vans camped smack in the middle of London outside Australia House. In 2009, the idea of even parking outside Australia House for more than 5 minutes would need an MI5 clearance.

But back to Sorrento and the Amalfi and Positano coast. What a motor bike riders joy. You sure don’t need 1200cc of motorbike power for the winding clifftop road to Amalfi and Positano, and I noticed some ancient, double over head cam, 50cc, Honda race bikes on display in Sorrento, as 50cc is all you need here, given its all about handing and brakes on the serpentine, and death defying roads, where one slip, and its over ya go.

Positano is still the lace and grace capital of the med, if you can geta park within 3 k. But goen are the fishing teams hauling in the nets and beaching the old double eneded fishing boats. Today, its all about marinas and recreational boating, and its both sad and graceful, to watch the 60 and 70 year old Sorrento oldies, taking a ritualistic morning dip, in the small spaces   between the extended restaurants and hire boat wharfing. Its sad seeing the old family first, que sera lifestyle of the real Europe vaporize into the mindless world or perma wanting, where its not about saving for that distinctive Ducati, when today, there are dozens of Ducatis, millions of choices, too much credit, and too little satifaction . Materialism has replaced maternalism. Oldies are abandoned to retirement homes. Processed foods, pharmaceuticals, perma-wanting and no time, have all combined to ruin the real Europe, as it has the world over.

I was soon going to jump that ferry to Greece, and the cheapest choice, at E60 was via the very bottom heal of Italy at Brindisi, where I had recalled a nightmare trip in 1974, by train to Bari, which was dutifully replaced by a scorching trip by bike to Brindisi, where despite the speed, the heat was like an oven, convincing me to drop any plans to drive across Saudi arabi to Dubia. The ferrys’E60 billet blew my E50 per day budget, so I decided to abandon camping, and do like i did in 1974, and sleep on deck of an overnight ferry to to Greece. Having since spent many months sailing at night, where being on deck requires more of you than just sleeping, the crossing where some other crew did the work whilst I slept, seemed a great idea, and indeed, it was a great night, along with hundreds of other under 30 ‘deckies’. I slept with a heavenly blessing, under the stars, behind the main wheel house, where regrettably, all the plastic bottles and cigarette butts had wind migrated overnight, they too knowing the best sheltered vortex in which to avoid being blown into the Adriatic.  I arrived expecting 6 pm departure, to be told it was at 9, so I spent few fun hours in Brindisi, reheating some tuna pasta outside a cafe, overlooking the waterfront, after paying for a single iced coffee as my entry card. Using the local drinking bubbler to wash up with, had its handicaps.

The ferry was packed, and I scraped in the low season price by a few hours, despite the fact that the ferry was packed, as the holiday season was in full flight. This may be the worst recession in 70 years, but it sure is no Great Depression. With the ability to now drive from one end of Europe to another in a day, towing van, of a speedboat, why not go to Greece for the summer holidays? But going to Greece for a summer holiday, is but the start of a European migration that has hit Greece, and every developer and his dog has got busy turning the Ionian coastline in a maze of new tourist towns and condos. The coast remains stunning, and has still enough thinness of population to allow for sneaky campsites, private beaches, and space between humans.

I love Greece. After months in Mexico, Peru and Panama, is was great to be out of the perfection and into the chaos once again. The drive south had taken me the full length of the Amalfi coast, which whilst absolutely stunning darlings, leaves nota square inch unused, and not paying obsene rent.  Greece was not like this. I tooke yet another chunk out of my tent,  sweeping the Amalfi bends, tent strapped alongside the panniers, where my sperting sense of cornering  saw the tent grazing along the stone walls. The poor tent, opened up on the M1, grazed on the walls of the Amalfii bends, and the over enthusiastic corner of the Cornwall lanes. Some bikies like throwing sparks from the pegs and the exhaust pipes, I like wearing down my tent.

I was detrmined, when I arrived in Greece, to not take part in the crass tourism that was the new Greece, but stick to where it was real, and I had pre-defined a vision of a campsite on a beach, under a tree, where the price war cool, and the place real. I was off the ferry just behind the horny Italian couple on their race bike, with the cute babe forced to perch on the pedestal rear seat, strapped to a giant back pack, but hey, they were so hot for it, who cared, and besides, it allowed the girlfriend to hang onto the boyfriend in places where joys sticks are sure to be found. The Ionian coast road was just as sensational as the Amalfi coast of the day before, and I was becoming quite addicted to the advantages of the bigger experience that a bike gives travellers. It was full summer now, and T shirts replaced armoured coats.

If a destination cracks a mention in Lonely Planet’s condensed and compacted guide to Europe, its generally worth a visit. But the sand spit connected island of Lefkada was an exception. My fucking GPS took me on 30k, inescapable freeway diversion, on a freeway so new, it wasn’t on the maps, so after telling the GPS what a genital organ it was, I resumed the ride to Lefkada via goat tracks that would confuse even the most experienced goat. In Greece, it only takes one goat. Lefkada was a development mess of big marina, hardware yards, tile sale specials, and new money gaudiness everywhere, where, for only $40, I could get a cramped campsite on a main road, 5k out of town. Fuck that. So off I rode,  determined to camp in that vision I had seen. And sure enough, by simply hugging the coast to where the developers had not reached, I found the archetypical, Greek , white washed village, where I instantly bought a beer, and said to myself, as I popped the top, fuck the rules…..I’m camping anywhere, gimmee another beer.

And sure enough, with and instant evening beer buzz, and a bit or experimentation with what 1100cc can do when opened up, a  long beach arrived, where a mad greek Mike had set up food van he had just bought in Amsterdam,  and he was selling beer and coffee, and behind him, were a handful of tents, at E5, not E20, and everyone was having fun. So I pitched the tent under the tree in my vision, had a swim, and went back to town, to a waterside, real deal Greek restaurant, designed then ordered my meal, and slipped into the heaven image i had designed the day before.

Sunday at the beach behind Mike E14,000 food truck called Visandel, about a kilometre south of a town called Mitikas, according to my GPS, and I decided to do nothing all day. Excluding writing. I may even try and flesh out some ideas for the book that is brewing away.  My spiritual comedy thing.

I have a deck chair here under the tree alongside the tent. The beach goers parade their flesh and toys along the still dirt esplanade infront. Mike’s toilet isn’t yet working, but hey, its a big paddock here. There is a water tanks on scaffold, and around eat times, the locals crowd under the shade cloth and trees, to eat souvlaki, as did I, proving I ain’t no vegetarian,  but maybe, just, like the myth of Lesbos,  maybe I’m  just a regular  vagitarian. I just paid for lunch, iced coffee and rent, and still I have E10 change from what the campsite next door wanted per night. Itsa busy life, riding around the planet, so its kinda nice to take a Sunday off, and do what they do on holidays around here. Nothing.

There is a big difference, I have found, between being a holiday maker, and being a traveller. Budget disciple is one big difference. Overall discipline is needed as a traveller. You don’t just see an ice-cream and lick it, when you are a traveller. I keep reminding myself of the character i met in Peru, who, at 70, had just spent 25 years sailing the world, working only 5 of those 25 years, and who for retirement, was riding a small Honda from Argentina to Alaska, before retiring to a European barge, to keep moving, but just more slowly. And his trick? Simplicity and discipline. In world where there a thousand ‘thingos’ to make you camp, boat of bike more comfortable or functional, the trick is to ignore them all. Just use the bare minimal selection of stuff.

My mind is sorting these things through, as there is a lot to be said for the life of travel, and little to be said for a death by suburban banality. I keep exploring and re-exploring the idea of disappearing off the map above PNG, or the Philippines, or Indo islands, using either a local fishing canoe/trimaran, or an aluminium equivalent. To go,  where the ‘perma-wanting’ is at its lowest, aided by the simple lack of stuff for sale. Could I do it? How tough, and how relaxed am I?

The life by bike, under the constraints of European expense, is good training. And if here I am, in the world’s most advanced civilisation, trying to find spots away from the monoculture of developed society, to find places where nature is natural, and humanity is human, surely there is a message to myself in my pursuits?. Maybe, I suspect, this ‘real’ life I seek, is to be found in places where it’s more tribal than Walmart? Besides, according to the clock, a series of alarms all get to ring at the same time in 2012, if you are to believe the projections from the past,  projections that todate have been running to schedule. What’s the point in not soaking it all up now,  and simply surf the apocalypse,  as the ‘set’, as surfers call it, is emerging over the back of the breakers.

I’ve now sailed more of the Med by bike than yacht, as car ferry passenger, mit mota.

The ferry to  Mykonos brought back memories of doing, rolling around in a deck full of sea sick passengers, 34 years ago. These days, it on monter ferries that despite 35 knots of wind, barely move. I rode the freeways into Rafina, had lunch and was in Mykonos, before midnight. Oh shit, what a fucking mess they made of Mykonos, once a spot for the bohemian cool, now juat another over developed disaster. The bus on the dock said, ‘camping?…follow me!” the back of the bus said, ‘FOLLOW ME TO PARADISE”…as paradise is the southern, funky beach, where 34 years ago, it was only accessed by boat, was mainly nude, stoned and bohemian. The back of the bus may better have read, “follow me to paradise lost’. The carnage was all around. The fist roundabout saw the first accident, where cute, tanned female legs, were all bloody, after one of the millions of holiday scooter disaster prangs, that is teh over packed Mykonos of 2009. They fucked Bali, and it seems Mykonos. I camped at paradise, and made the huge mistake of camping near the carpark of a 1000 head, international doof, where right through to dawn, 50cc scoters, like a plague of mosquitoes, made even me, the hardiest of sleepers, ever awake.

The next day, the new Mykonos was revealed…gone where any traces of Greek fishing, in were new marinas, and where once there were donkey paddocks, were thousands of new developments, roundabouts, etc etc.

But by late afternoon, when the beach side house DJ’s had kicked in, and whole new, fun Mykonos was being revealed unto me. It was still for sure, a fun place.

Turkey, via Samos is next…then it;s back north via the old eastern block countries…. this. Ladies and gentlemen, was Western Europe, 2009.

Mykonos is a sensation, of the world wide kinda. Its where the fresh honey suntans, meet the funky fashion, in the evening display of everybody, to all the other bodies.

It should really have been the island that was called Eros, not Mykonos. Sure, they call it a gay mecca, but you wouldn’t notice, as the sexiness of the young, hip and hetero swamp the gay scene. The gays, without kids, over the laste few years, have become so professional, so weathy, so , almost right wing, its an odd phenomena. There is still the odd outrageous. Mad, life of the party gay guy floating around, but the gay scene sure has lost a lot of its pizzazz, now that its part of the main stream.

The sexuality business sure has changed over the years. Mykonos is a good place to make the observations. When I was 20, the local greek fishermen, used their boats to ferry beach goes to the back beaches of Mykonos, Paradise and super Paradise Beach, where then, clothing optional. In other words, nude beaches. This was all a bit of a novelty for my girlfriend and I, but not as much a novelty, as seeing the odd couple roll onto each other, and do it.  We made a shy attempt at getting into the swing of things, but pink arses, where once there was light ban, is not always a good look. Nor is it fun to sit on. But nonetheless, this was Mykonos in the 70’s. Back then,  watching what was going down, all I could assume, was that by 2000, the whole beach scene everywhere was going to get nek’ed. I was wrong.  Despite the overt sexiness of the Mykonos beach scene, its barely even topless.

An old buddy, who has lived between Goa, Mykonos and Bali for over 40 years, Luka, has settled back into his lifetime travel and sarong selling career in Mykonos, and we got chatting, as we have done for many years, albeit it’s been more than 10 years , maybe 15, since we last chatted. With some, people, time elapses between conversations are neither here nor there. We agreed, that the new prudishness of the  younger generation is all part of the electro separation, that takes the touch out of day to day life, and replaces it like this, reading it online. We also agreed, that is seemed a lot more fun, being young 30 years ago, especially mixing and travelling in the international bohemian, kinda hiipy scene. What ever became of the hippy scene eh? Burnt out, as pot changed to uppers, and uppers changed to ice? The LSD explorations, and almost shamanistic adventures of the 70’s, grew barbed wire teeth when up went speedy, not insightful, with the introduction of cheaper, dirtier drugs.

The days when Bali consisted of 4 of 5 cafes at Legion seem almost a millennia ago. The once cool Goa, is a scene of fat, packaged tourism.  The bourgeois replaced the hippy surfers of Byron. You get jailed for smoking a joint in Indo China, where once, everyone sat smoking at sunset. Mykonos at least maintained the white wash, and stone wall town planning ethos, and unlike Bali, refused the gross, mega resort hotel concept, much to the benefit of the locals over the corporates.

The party scene at Mykonos, has obviously been fed a diet of steroids, and more big name international DJ’s pump out tunes, in one of the mega scenes here, than, well, I have ever seen, or is that, scene. I’m sure Ibiza competes. The après beach scene, is like a night club in bikinis. It’s pumping. You could, given the ability to fins a dark spot to crawl away between 9 am and 3pm, dance non-stop, around the altered clock, here in Mykonos. How the 20 somethings can afford the $40 cover charges, and $15 drink prices, is beyond my budgetary imagination. Maybe on strict, no drink, no drug, all shine approach, you could do it not going broke. But i think the young just go broke, abandoning the older ways of beinga traveller, and giving in to being a holiday maker. There is a big difference. ne splurges, and is forced back into the urban grind. The other skimps, and is travelling for years. I subscribe still, to the skrimp and stay plan, But these days, with airfares the best deal in an otherwise rip-off European society, there is not the necessity to treat international air tickets with any degree of budgetary reverence.

At Super Paradise, where once there were hippies platting the frayed end of sarongs they bought in Asia, sitting at the water’s edge, is now a wall to wall real estate franchise on umbrellas and deck chairs…. like all of Europe. If you want to see one good argument in favour of radical depopulation, just check out any European beach in August. Mind you, the poor Europe and are so sun staved, in the majority of their 500,000,000 homes, I suppose you can understand their obsession to get some sun, when it actually shines. It’s brilliant sunshine here, a clarity of light, truly Greek. It’s also blowing gale,  a gale that would blow any yacht to oblivion. It’s enough to make riding even the heaviest of bikes, a bit nerve racking, literally smacking your head sideways, as gusts hit you.  Add to this, thousands of idiot scooter and quad riders, in bare feet, with no helmet, racing around roads so tight, it would throw a go cart, and after dark, it becomes positively dangerous on the roads, especially adding a lack of cops with breathalysers. Luka tells me the hospitals are overflowing with holiday scooter victims, and I had been on the road here all of 10 minutes , before i heard my first bam, and saw the blood oozing from the tanned,  sexy legs of yet another girl who is learning the hard way.  It was once worse in Bali, but they did something about it there. Here, blood on the road is seemingly profit centre for someone. But Super Paradise is indeed a part phenomenon, and last night, the beat never stopped till 9 am, hammering at DB levels that would be illegal anywhere else, even with a sound meter 1000m away. It seems here on Mykonos, where there are seemingly no drugged hippies, no rued bits on display at the beach, that beneath the sheets, and behind the scenes, its as out of it, and as laid, as ever.

Somewhere in all this sunshine and madness, I’m deep in research about this ying/ yang, DNA/ reptilian, good vers evil planet of duality we live in, to try, at 54, to make some sense of the world at its deepest level, and I have a library of all the latest philosophies on the subject, and I’m deep in contemplation, and at time, totally out of any mind state whatsoever, just intuitively trying to figure it. I’m close, but not there. The tough bit, if you understand the history and background to the planet, beyond the shit they teach at school and uni, is reconciling why the dark and evil, is equally behind the light and loving, in the swim of the two snakes that are the ying and yang tadpoles of life on earth. When I’ve got it figures, I’ll write you. I’m close.

I better go upload this stuff, as it seems months since I last sent a postcard, and is anyone ever reads thus far, it would be a miracle.

The LUCK OF THE IRISH …is contagious

The ferry that takes you from Wales to Ireland is kind of like a giant cafeteria bedeck with flatscreens and lower decks. All my preconceived ideas about the ferocioty of the Fastnet killing Irish sea, were laid to waste as the 3 hour crossing could have been across a lake. Such is timing, and sea crossings.

Ferries now crisscross Europe and the UK full of campervans and semitrailers, by the dozen. Back in the 70’s the hovercraft across the English Channel expensive and, in my experience at least, deaf defying….falling in 12 m drops, throwing the contents of my kombi around the walls and ceilings, and making all but the hardcore few immune from joining the gastric gas ambience of a cabin full of vomit.  I thought Cesna’s in a storm were bad, till I tried the Hovercraft in a Force 400.  God knows how they weren’t banned earlier. The trip I took was once of the last for the hovercraft….good for hovering over a lake, but not the English Channel. So  the cafeteria crossing watching Sky news was droll.  Murdoch’s Sky was leading in the  manipulated media’s, cyclical demolition of the British government, currently led  by morose Prime Minister, Gordon Browns. The Rothchild’s simply discard on mob, in readiness to bring in the next Blair, this time a Tory, but in reality, just like the swap of Bush to Obama, there is no real change, as all funding dependant leaders are adherents to those, who behind the scenes, pay the bills behind the bills. Put any politician on a high wire, with 48% of the votes against him on one balancing pole, and 52% on the other, and its arguably dead easy to nudge the highwire  anyway you like, left or right, given black hand in media, or bureaucracy, or corporatocracy. When all black hands come from the one source, both Tory, Labour, Democrat or Republican leaders, they are all puppets on the highwire of a successfully divided and conquered system. Round of applause please, for the Black Hand. True professionals.

Onboard the ferry, truckies snooze, or fiddle with their phones, seeking payment via SMS arrival notices , asking to get paid in Euros either in Ireland or from Europe, from whence they come, being that Ireland and Europe are all one, in terms of currency (and most of their law), if you can believe that Irish buckled to Brussels,  after years of fighting England.  Go figure?

Landing in Dublin, it was nice to see that there is an unwritten law allowing motorbikes to park for free, on discreet pavement choices of their choosing. I choose just outside the front window of a hostel called Avalon, and moved in, along with panniers and tent. I don’t travel light, its neither safe nor hygienic, as one round the world yachty once put it.  It’s was Friday afternoon, in the season of the 11pm twiglight, and every street table and chair in Dublin was alive with chatter, every pub was  abuzz, along with every cafe and street corner.
I had never been to Ireland, but I had be warned to expect unexpected friendliness. As the coffee clouds in my first Guinness did their inversion lava lamp display, a quick look around the pub revealed an immediate characteristic of the Irish. They were listening, not just talking. They were engaging each other, not just on terms of being in the same social strata, or for sex, or for work, but just for the sake of humanity. Old gentlemen, chatting to younger women. Eccentric nutters chatting to suits.

The raven hair and blues eyes of the local lasses, sprinkled with a few freckles, sent mating tones through my Celtic DNA. What a lovely scene Dublin made.

With the same communicative openness of the New York, Ireland added a dash of compassion to all its gestures.

What a change from England. Whilst England has never looked more shinny and prosperous, its social connectivity was in tatters, with the press obsessed with moralistic trivia, and some 300 surveillance cameras prying into each person’s life, each day. Bobbies who once were armed with batons, now carried submachine guns. The enemy of Britain was not the Nazi, it was now the resident. The local was the suspect. Despite the outrageously clear evidence linking MI5 with the tube bombings, having set up the

‘terrorists’ in what was meant to be an exercise,  an exercise that went bang instead of futt. The next day, on the BBC,  the truthful but bungling statement by M15’s PR managers was ripped off stage with a shepherd’s hook before the second round of questions had been thrown. It was, apparently, just pure coincidence that M15 had a full blown bomb simulation exercise running at the exact time and place where the actual bomb went off. Yeah, right. NORAD 2.

Odd the way witnesses said the floor of the train had been pealed upwards from an under carriage explosion, considering the supposed bomb was in a backpack. Kinda like a jet fuel fire, maxed out at 1200 C, melting twin tower steel, that only melts at double that temperature. England, base station Iluminati, had fallen well into their myriad of ongoing, “Dead Babies R US’ plans. The people had been so poisoned and anesthetised that Prozac was now in the eco cycle of the meadows and brooks of rural Britain. Cardiovascular disease was at record and growing records, and every second bloke could expect to contract cancer. Apart from that Britain was in great shape.

Ireland, bless it, did not show billboard road signs, with an insignia of a surveillance camera at every second main road. The Irish weren’t exactly healthy lot, but at least they were not as sickly as the Brits, off to Tesco’s preserved food aisles, in their battery powered wheelchairs.

Ireland is beautiful, I soon discovered, when my oversize gloves made a mistake on GPS, consigning me on my first day’s ride to tiny mountain back roads, across moors, and down through winding forests and farms into valleys full of picture postcard cottages. Cork was a bottler. Wicklow’s way was a winding wonder. And then at the very tip of the windswept farmlands of southern Ireland, in the Ring of Beara, high on cliff overlooking the incoming Gulf Stream,(long may it hopefully circulate, eeek) was a Buddhist retreat and cheap hostel, built in the original farmers cottage, surrounded by fuchsias and organic veges.  Sogyal Rinopoche, spiritual director of Rigpa, and author of the palliative care text, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,  a text sold by the millions, had set up this retreat for funky backpackers, nearly dead, and deep retreat hardcore, all in their comfy space, spread around the headland. Meditation space, for the big chill of the morning sessions, was perched in a carpeted glass house, looking miles out to sea, across a roaring coastline of breathtaking, or maybe, breath conscious views.

If I were to pick a religion to adopt, I would adopt Buddhism. But then having seen what thieving and superstitious acts that some  traditional Buddhist monks indulge in, I might please elect to admire the core teachings, but not engage in the religious adherence. The practise of stilling the mad mind of man, is a practice well worthy of pursuit. Buddha was a hit more than 2000 years ago, and since then, the evolution of consciousness has shifted up several gears, and is heading to either a global car crash, or higher game, depending on whether the human heart, or the Lords of Form, win the next set. Apparently, the big game has a grand final real soon. So whilst the Buddhist teachings make grand foundations, there is now a higher structure we are working on. Precariously.

Winding through the back bays and green lane ways of southern Ireland, with the boxer engine of the BMW humming away like a wing full of Lancaster engines, it was a gentle thrill that no car ride can duplicate. 70kg of kit, in panniers bolted to bomb racks seemed to inspire, rather the dampen the ride, albeit in car parks and tight turns, the height and weight of the overland frame was a right regular pain in the arse, falling over at least once a week, and to my horror, denting my otherwise shiny and perfect, red and white fuel tank. But shit happens, and I refuse to minimise my camping, library, and weird food stocks, simply to emulate an Easy Rider with fat credit card. As for the dented tanks, hey, I just say I had them personally shaped to fit the panniers.

And shit happens when you least expect it. When an engine starts a dead spot splutter, my mind goes first to water in the fuel. But modern fucking German engineers are too smart by halves, putting sensors in German bikes, where even anal proctologists would fear to go. So on the morning after the day I had given the BM a nice scrub, and with a feeling of confidence in BMW engineering, the engine began to die. It took its time, fading in and out over 20k’s, until finally expiring with just enough momentum, to roll right to the front door of the nearest business. By chance, a BMW outlet.  It was as if the bike wanted to return to its makers. They didn’t do bikes, but they did know who did, so a day spent waiting around a small Irish hamlet, was rewarded with a GS expert, driving away with the dead bike on a trailer, suffering a terminal ‘hall ‘switch fault, that had the right of life and death over the engines pulse, and in this reality, I was left twiddling tralee, trala, in town called Tralee. So much for Galway and a visit to Roisin in Belfast. Me in a tent, under a big oak, in campsite, listening to the rain drum the outer lining.

Back in Dublin, I had stumbled into a street protest that never seemed to have an end…the crowd ran for over a kilometre, with thousands out to protest the workings of the evil Irish Roman Catholic church, and its co-conspirator, the State, after report after report had lifted the veils on what amounted to systematic abuse, and in some case torture, of 160,000 institutionalized kids, under some 216 catholic institutions, since the 50’s. After all the paedophilia, the abuse of children, by the dark, unquestioned ways of the all powerful catholic church, comes as one of the obvious nails in the coffin of an institution who will never be resurrected. Just as predicted, and infact prophesised. Thousands raised little shoes in the air, in silent protest. Police guarded the gates of the Parliament, where the thousands marched, and the church did its best to ignore the clamour, in the crumbling ruins of what was once the unquestioned dominance of the church, state and constabulary. Their use by date is approaching.

The pain of the now grown faces of the once abused kids was palpable. Catholic institutions can be bad…but Irish Catholic ones can be terrifying.

Riding around the freshly glaciated bays and valleys of southern Ireland, in and out of the coves and harbours, made even the beauty of even Devon and Cornwall compete. The green lined roads are beyond beautiful, but are a risky ride, with nowhere to run, when a bus or a van one comes around a narrow corner on the squeeze.

It’s not dark till after 10 pm on approach to the summer solstice, here in Ireland, so when to start dinner is a very confusing concept. Who needs daylight saving when day its never dark. I would not want to be here for the winter solstice.

I have a great fondness for camping. I actually like a fairly flat micro mattress, and having spent up big, on an all down sleeping bag, I prefer a cosy tent, even under heavy rain, than a sterilised hotel room. There is something beyond cosy, tucked up in a hikers tent, when it’s hammering down outside. Other hiking/biking campers, stick their noses out of their tents after the morning showers clear, like snails rolling their eyes out of their shell. I admire the touring push bike crew, for their ability to travel light, a skill i refuse to practise.  A spirited retiree has bought an new version of the classic Triumph Bonneville, parked in the camp site alongside me, and he’s doing what he always wanted to do from when he was 20 something, with a pregnant girlfriend. England is awash with retirees on the road.

They specialise here in building cute-sy fibreglass motor homes that are the equivalent of a thatched cottage on wheels. But unlike the thatched cottage, and more like the medical condition of the inhabitants, the white motor homes are connected to tubes are more reminiscent of colostomy bags, and pacemakers. Inside the heated vans, lined up like housing estates in bland van parks, the retirees watch Sky on through their dishes and flatsceens, whilst frying up their food, and boiling the buggery out of their veges, popping NHS pills by the handful, and wondering why all their mates are going down like flies. Some of the really adventurous ones bring their electric shopping mobiles for the odd trip to the shower block, albeit most vans now have bogs and showers. With every second person now contracting cancer, the retirees, who long since abandoned their personal responsibility for their health to the advice of their doctors, the marketing of the processed food companies, and the veiled push of the drug companies, it was interesting to catch a BBC doco drama about the pressure being applied to supply life extending drugs to terminally ill cancer patients, where the drug is that useful, that after toxing you, you still end up dead, but at a cost of $100,000 per script, per year. In dollar for dollar comparison, the retirees who never even tried to look after their now decrepit bodies, are being allocated funds at 140% higher dollar per life saved, than younger members of society with terminal issues.  Palliative care, as say the Buddhists promote, looks more at the quality of how you die, rather than just when you die, and funds to the struggling social workers who try to get support for the terminally ill, in their homes, with their families, have seen all their funds vaporised by government spending on drug companies, who profiteer off keeping neo corpses in suspended mortality. Dont kid yourself, cancer is big business, and my earlier story of the murder of 9 out of 10 UCLA breakthrough researchers, with a credible cancer cure,  still does not see the film and book of their incredible tale even get a peak.

Enough of the nearly dead. Let’s get newly wed. I surprise myself with my lack or recall of just how many friends I have secreted away in my mind, as lost in Europe somewhere. There is always someone who has a contact or email link somewhere. So I finally mastered Skype, Vodaphone deals and with some detective work, I located more old mates and girlfriends. But as this is a story in the now, not the future, I’m not there yet. But if the damn part arrives, I will be on a ferry and back in England in a flash.

Friends in Dubai tempted me to ride through the middle east, and come visit….a totally insane idea I am considering with dutiful spinning of the Google Earth roulette wheel.

I fancy some escape from the ridiculous prices of Ireland and the UK…where a pint  costs $8, and a load of DYI washing and drying costed $17, and head for the old and authentic eastern block Europe, and with it Greece and Croatia for some sunshine, so I can afford to socialise. I have some appointments in London Paris and Amsterdam first, but then they are sort of on the way anyway.

The EU countries, UK included, were wide mouthed succours for the shove-it-down-ya throat debt on offer from the banking cartels, fattening us geese in readiness to squeeze our liver.

Well its liver squeezing time, and the unemployment, bankruptcy and ‘where’s my fat cheque’ depression has set in with earnest. With every punter once getting a loan approval bigger than Ben Hur, they all turned up at the  Saturday morning auctions to throw debt swathes at property sales, with all the abandon of an approving funder, and in so doing, bid each other up to the point where the same miserable, post war housing, sold for 3 or 4 times its real worth in wage affordability terms, and no one batted an eyelid. Dinner party talk was al about how much stuff we had stuffed into. The impact was that rents skyrocketed, the banks quadrupled their gross, and a simple sandwich for a traveller like me, given the rental overhead, costs $8 here in Ireland. The Irish were late starters, but pig at the trough first timers. With every would-be professional deciding to become a property developer, builders became swamped with work, and they too tripled their prices. I was privy to the gorging myself, managing the construction of two big projects, where at the start of the boom some 5000m of housing was built for a third of the price of similar housing across the road in 2006. During the boom, the builders all arrived in shiny new, fully optioned up, four wheel drive vehicles, and refused to do tough work, and charged triple for the privilege of turning up occasionally. Lawyers gorged on the conveyancing. Architects, (40% now unemployed here in Ireland) where working around the clock. Councils could not get planners as they had been ripped off by developers. 1 in 30 of us, a four fold increase, became ‘financial services’ managers, plundering the system by devising derivatives so complex that the holders could not figure out if they were infact a debt or an asset, but what the hell anyway, they made the loans based on 40 dollars lent, with only one dollar in the bank. And Greenspan, and the Illuminati Banks of England and Bank of America all fuelled the deregulatory fire, so that when they suddenly pulled the cash flow choker chain, they could get what they want, namely, a series of governments willing to do whatever the banks wanted, ‘it’s unprecedented’, including facilitating the formation a world banking governance, years premature of a world government, and as the matriacal Rothchild’s once quipped, who needs control over a country’s government, if you control its money anyway.

But all this seeming doom and gloom conceals the real benefits of the recession. Hey guys, loads of ‘stuff’ does not make you happy for long. Infact it’s often, or more like, eventual, that it makes you miserable. Looking back on my life, and I have owned the odd waterfront, and few dozen homes, its painfully obvious that the most shinny enjoyable times I have had, were at my most broke, and my most miserable and stressed times, where when I was up to my neck in my stuff. It took me a sound and thumping fall, to finally help me figure out, that if ya don’t stress in pursuit of  more wealth, you actually end up doing really well, in real wellness terms, by not giving a shit. My financial collapse would sell a million $2 novels, what with all its off-the-wall , off-shoot, stories of mafia bankers, crazed millionaires and bleeding edge entrepreneurial madness. And after going broke, the tale of going from private sector to public official would sell another million comedic paperbacks. I better not start the recollection, or this motorcycle diary will loose another wheel.

Let me throw something in…’happiness’ is a passing myth…. it’s as fleeting as a fart…what is real, however, is enjoyment, or IN JOY THE MOMENT.

The difference being with enjoyment,  is that the real yououts in the sparkle, from inner to out, where as with happiness, you are looking for some external boost to support you.

You can get enjoyment out of doing the washing up, with a laugh and some enthusiasm…. but those looking for happiness rarely include washing up on their list happiness’s pursuit, and counter to advertised beliefs, they sadly miss some of the best parts.

The Irish, much as they were quick to fall for the money trap, are better placed than most, to return to matter of enjoyment, and the heart, as  seemingly they are better connected than most. Besides, they’re good fun.

But its great to see people waking up to the fact that the best thing to hang onto in life, is not stuff, but relationships. When your feel rich, you become an island, capable of calling in anyone you need, by phone and credit card. In our former society, we had to enlist the help of our village community, to gather the harvest, or to build the newly wed’s home-sweet-hut. This made us intertwined. So destruction of the man-as-an-island financial lie, is a lie well worth disembowelling. Quantum physicists and mathematicians have long known that all things, us included, are intrinsically connected: all the mystics, indigenous and enlightened mob know we are one, but given $400K spare equity in ya home, and a credit card waiting to be plundered, we all completely abandoned the ‘we’ for the ‘me’. But times, painfully for many, are changing. And for those addicted to the wealth before life game,  there may be more pain is ahead.

The recession is a win for the heart, at the expense of the head. And all the ‘evil’ players who orchestrated this giant fuck up, need an appreciative round of applause, as without their dark agenda, we would never be given a chance to see it, and reject it. You rarely learn to change a car battery, unless one have had one go flat on you first.

The wait for the bike’s new crank shaft sensor, down in southern Ireland came to a sudden halt on a balmy solstice twilight, after 3 days in Tralee, when a GS angel Liam rolled into my campsite, declaring my Beemer working. Liam had sourced a second hand crank sensor, retrieving the bike after borrowing mates bike trailer, dismantling a good chunk of the engine, all done at night, like flight engineers in the Battle of Britain, Liam drove me back to the bike, charges only 80 euros for his time, and after giving me some inside tips on GS maintenance, waved me on my way. If corporate BMW had done the same service, it would have taken longer and cost 4 times more. Poor BMW…its been so fattened in the boom, its about to get an ugly dose of the mirror, showing what rip-off twats they really are, serving to either status challenged wankers, appreciators of good engineering, or, who, like me in the 80’s, suspected part of their life can be defined by their car. With  heavy days riding agenda ahead, with a plan to cross Ireland, the Irish sea, and half of England, the camp was stripped to fast exit status for  an early get away. The bike as usual was loaded like a camel.

Knocking off Ireland was done by lunch, aboard a high speed cat, full of semitrailers…and with my destination deep in England, still ahead, it was just as well I was well motivated, as it was a solid night and day, thundering ride. My destination was the meeting point of where 500 other around the world type bikers, had gathered for what is the worlds largest gathering of   motorised adventure travellers, and their Mongolian worn kit. Much of the kit was German, mixed in with a range of heavy dirt bikes, the odd Harley and some storage enhanced trail bikes. Whilst the pay-to-play riders on the brand new 1200cc GS tourers had the flashest kit, it was the old beaten up BMW bikes that was clearly the coolest, or at least, most character packed gear.

I could has won the world award, for the most shit ever bolted or strapped to an old beemer…albeit I had steep competition. Some bikes were that travelled, they made around the world yachties look lazy. One unique specimen had welded a massive,  pizza delivery style pannier set, into and around the tight frame of track racing  superbike, and he had it in all parts of the world…including muddy Congo river crossings, all with clip-on racing bars, and full sports seating stance.

The touring crew is mainly all over 40 these days, as the image of bikers as the young Marlin Brando, or the stoned Fonda fade away, replaced by the middle age, who now rule the touring teams. And in fact it was the 60 and 70 year old world tourers who had the most sensational recent stories, and with it, the philosophies and books they have written. I liked the perspectives of one old codger, who looked fondly on the time his old beemer fell for the fourth time that day, breaking his leg, but with shock, not hurting at all, as, or so he argued, the experience of recovering in some remote Kenyan village was well worth the eventual pain and delay. Life is about what happens with other people along the way…its not about the destination. In the case of the broken leg tale, the rider/author also argued that its important to select a bike that is not too reliable, as it’s what happened when you break down that is the real chance of experiencing life,  atop which, one should never make plans when riding abroad, as it will deny you of the delights of living now, and not for tomorrow.

Accordingly, the best kit to my mind was the older, beaten up BMW, without all the electronic sensors that will leave you completely fucked in the middle of the Sahara, with no Ewan McGregor film crew and chopper, to fly in the factory computer whiz, to reset the chips. The older the BM, the less the electronic bullshit and the tougher the engineering.

I was told my older mota was a rare anniversary edition at the top of its tougher genera, a restoring thought, given my earlier grumpiness at the bike’s 3 day breakdown. But had it not broken down, I would have missed meeting a play full of great  Irish characters, not the least of whom was Nolan the nurseryman, who takes the odd annual walking tour through a park in the middle of Tralee, where we were introduced to a range of ancient and beautiful trees, many of whom had grown up along with Mr Nolan, as he had lived alongside the park all his life, and would no doubt have 60 bark rings on display if he were to loose a limb. There is a marvellous simple nature, in being a giant oak, a silent demonstration of how to live aligned with life, with no need, unlike us, of needing to know our name, let alone our place.

Be a tree. That’s all a tree does.

Be a human, is more than humanity can do.

A must see on any world trio is a tour of the, Micka and Jackie’s Gardiner’s Kingdom of Safron Waldron, the realm of prince Conor.  The rural setting alongside Cambridge, just outside of London, is a lovely place to make family. Stumbling around Cambridge with Micka in the perma twilight of the summer solstice, more by ‘trolley’ than by good sense, saw a fitting end to a tour of England, before hammering off to eternal Amsterdamnation.

Cambridge, complete with all its demonic decoration,  is the final nod and the wink, in the closed package known by some as establishment rule, but which behind the scenes is a bit more centralised that a mere establishment. All the established myths around medicine, archaeology and silo’d science remain unchallenged, and are now arguably fading vestiges of total cover up and bullshit,  and with the aid of the Oxford, Cambridge and Ivy League professorial decrees,  the core educational doctrines remain stinking bullshit. Before WW2, Iluminati through their lower team leaders, in the form of the Fabian Society, insured that the  prestige university scholarships, then professorial appointments, went only to those who sought never to challenge the established lies, where for example, medicine denies the energetic influences manifested in say acupuncture, archaeology denies the advanced understandings of  say Mayan and Egyptian history, by perpetrating the simplistic myths that say pyramids are mere tombs, and which in science, continues to deny the implications of the multidimensional universe, and the fact that there is only energy, not matter. But such weighty matters were not the focus of the few lagers downed canal side in Cambridge when Mike Gabour rang for our monthly radio interview, with us on the piss, and home sweet Port Douglas doing breakfast.

The interview made some amusement of previous day’s, highway camping escapade, when my pop up, 3 man tent, ‘inflated’ on the M1 at 120k/h, with the same effect as a  dragster’s parachute, unannounced. To complete the move, the parachute tent,  then ejected itself under full reverse thrust, and proceeded, at 120k/h, to do a full pop up, and erect itself in lane 3 of the 4 lane M1, coming to a quaint and cost campsite stop, in front of a stampede of white knuckled truckers,  trying to decelerate 40 tonnes, without causing a 20 car pileup in the process.

As for me, I was running back down the motorway, in the lee of the tent, with a look on my face that said, if you run over my tent, you will have to run over me too. That’s my home there…. and sure, it may not be the quietest place to set up a tent, but, but….

After Dell’s world wide guarantee fell into corporate tatters, with their repair codes needing 40 minutes of pass-the-buck international call centre denials, I gave up on the Dell arseholes ( we hate you Dell and Vodaphone) and I just ordered a new laptop charger, cursing Dell, and waited till the postie wheeled in with the part,  the next day, before heading for Ramsgate, like a bull at a gate. All was going to be a breezy ride south to the lunchtime ferry to Belgium, until I realised, in our sideways state the night before, I had left my GPS in Micka’s car, and Micka had gone to work. The sideways memory engaged to add more chaos, as we hadn’t actually taken Micka’s car, and the GPS, a tool to find things, was infact sitting in the driveway, in the other car. If only GPS units had a function to find GPS units. I would kill for an invention to locate car keys, reading glasses and missing socks. At least these days, you can walk around underground car parks, pressing the remote door locks, until you see a flashing car somewhere, often your own.  Finally, we figured that the GPS was not lost at all, it was right under our nose. But by this stage the ride to Ramsgate had become a compulsory 120k/h running of the bull, and so greasing aboard an old rusty ferry manned by Romanians @ only 36 quid, was a peaceful departure to the Brave New World, of Orwellian styled UK. ‘God save the Queen, its a fascist regime…” Thanks goodness for the Irish, that they are now more a part of the EU, than the socially sick UK.

‘God save the Queen, Its a fascist regime’

S. Vicious.

The Sex Pistols 1975

‘Evening Sar…a, copy of the Daily Tele by any chance?’, twipped the ever so sweet, British Airways hostess, as I settled into a part of the jumbo I hadn’t paid for.  A tip here. Always be the last one onboard, and grab the best looking seat left available.  Maybe I overdid it a bit, as I later found out…. what with the British having more levels of social status than they have Royal everythings, I had apparently plonked myself in a class somewhere between first class slumber booths, and my, economy cattle .

Opening the paper, it’s was 20 pages, one after the other, of government destroying freedom of information exposes, on the pig in the trough habits of hundreds of MP’s, at a rate of about 10 MP’s a day,  apparently strung out to sell the Tele for weeks. Just as the MP’s had ripped off the taxpayers, getting their moat’s cleaned with toothbrushes, so too did the Tele rip-off the independent journo who had done FOI . hard yard, court time, to win the eventual High Court battle, that released a flood of tirade and disgust, at the 600 plus MP’s.

The MPs like a scene out of Animal Farm, were not amused, as they squashed, shoulder to shoulder, into the House of Commons, like some sort of industrial pig farm, in suits.

Limitless electoral and career damage was done to hoards of them, as the public cried for an election to behead the bunch of them. I know the feeling.

NYC’s JKF was fogged down, with dozens of jets cued for their chance to hammer down the strip, with wingtips fogged out of sight, and then leap skywards, into the grey nothingness, where once up above the clouds, it was a nice bright evening. It was not such a nice bright morning when I landed in London.

Normally I wouldn’t give a shit about the weather in the UK….assuming it to always be shitful. But it was particularly bad this morning, and somehow, I had to get 50 kg to Taunton, in Somerset, load it somehow onto a bike I had never seen, but owned, and ride off, decamp, and sleep in the unfolded contents of the kit bags, all in a wet, freezing, UK gale.

I told myself, as the wipers on the bus to Taunton sloshed away the rain, that it was time I toughened up. The heaters fogged the view of the cruel outside view. Yes, I could just give in, $cough up, and head for the nearest B&B, or cosy pub. But nope, Rod, I said to myself, Rod, you are gunna do this mate, toughen up.

The bike dutifully unfolded, as did a half dozen boxes and bags in the wet back yard, where the bike vendor, Paul, (Director of Humanities, Psychology) Smith, watched on as my insanity unfolded with it. Given a few hours, the bike looked like the Beverly Hillbillies Model T, and I was heading to Beverly Hills. All I lacked was grandma in a rocking chair on top.

My bike was a BMW R1100GS, the Lancaster bomber of off-road bikes…..the type Ewan McGregor had immortalised in the doco series, The Long, (or maybe, The Wrong) Way Around.

Guided through Taunton by the ever gracious Paul, I was ended up at the nearest camping ground, which was a cross between a Steptoe and Son set, and chook farm. The owner made cider here, bred birds, and greyhounds, and to add a level of colour and chaos, threw in few peacocks, who behaved like the politician from whence their name was derived, giving me a dose of attitude bad enough to make Shirley McLean fuck Andrew.

Hours unfolded the next day, as I tried to figure out what gear should go where. I already had a pannier set on bike, but I had 3 more coming, to be rigged in a truly Lancaster bomber way, ready to burn Dresden. In the meantime, I had to store and strap gear in bright, yellow and orange, rafting bags, as well as using my suitcase for a surprisingly comfortable backrest.

Day two, and it was off to the Moors of Dartmoor, to where the Hound of the Baskervilles awaited me. Some miserable campsite behind a cosy pub tested the blizzard capacity of my popup tent, as I drank Jail Ale  made, I presume, in the next door, 650 head, Dartmoor prison. In prison, they had central heating and cable TV. Committing a crime looked logical, after night 2 in the tent.

But ahead was a few charming nights in St Ives, the UK’s prettiest seaside port, where the albatross sized seagulls, cried  listlessly in the night, with all the dying soul of Davey Jones. There, the tide tried its best to suck the entire town out through the stone wharf fortifications, the walls that had guarded hardy fishermen, deep back into ancient history. Where the pirates of Penzance, and black capped skippers had once recovered their circulation in the sheds, chapels and pubs of the waterfront, now, ice cream sales, and Devonshire teas fattened the bewildered tourists,  pram pushers who sought, but never found authenticity in their experience. The whole of southern England had become a weekend retreat for jaded, overweight, and limp dicked tourists, wandering the shops of useless trinkets, oblivious to the soul and history of one of the most beautiful seafaring destinations on earth.

Running against the tide, the odd authentic salt, mended his nets, or pottered around with his diesel launch.  The local newspaper reported the resurrection of the ‘Spirit of Dunkirk’, when a bunch of 14 ex urbanised shopkeepers, threw a few blankets at the door of a florist, whose piping overflowed. Those who died in sea of industrial grade blood at the real Dunkirk would have rolled over in their grave at the thought of the analogy. Such was the limp life of ice cream sales in St Ives.

To me, the charm and cosiness of Devon and Cornwall is unsurpassed the world over. The feeling I get from the low ceilings in the 400 year old pubs, is like that childhood shiver of excitement you get, from building your first cubby house. Buildings lean in on the street, like some Disney designer deformation. Twee bay windows, and thatched attics put the snug, into smuggling. Streets are so tight, that anywhere else on earth, they would be deemed one way. But not in Devon. In Devon, they put double decker buses down streets that anywhere else, would be restricted to push bikes and pedestrians. And it’s two way.  l love it. Except when I’m forced to wheel 400 kg of bike and payload, backwards up a laneway blocked by an oncoming vehicle whose mirrors are scraping both sides.

Waking in the upper bunk of the St Ives International ( and local dropout) Hostel, I could not fathom, what sort or early morning council vehicle could sound like a trashing machine made of hard nylon flappers. The sound came and went. And when it came again, it turned out to be a sort of snowmobile with plastic feet, around a caterpillar tread, towing a cat tread, lifeboat trailer. How silly of me for not having picked it earlier.

They like their heroic lifeboat stuff around here. Considering the paucity sea safety offerings in most places I had just sailed, maybe Cornwall lifeboat rescue addicts should consider an outreach programme. No sea to rough, no muff to tough, Cornwall sailors will go down on anything, ah, oops, any sea, sorry. One 3 tonne lifeboat behemoth, that was rowed as propulsion, was dragged by horse and men, on a wheeled cradle, up inclines that snow skiers would love, and over 15k of moor land, to be launched at Pormouth, in to effect a  rescue of some hapless ship wreck victims, in a classic tale of sea rescue determination. Me. I liked the idea of wheels under a boat.

What I yearned for, was a real dose of English countryside, and to find it, like all modern poms, I went online. Online, I found Westermill farm, and arrived at the farm gate to the excitement of several Border Collies, and a milk and honey farmers’ daughter, giving the dogs what-for. This was Exford, a twee hunting village, with two pubs, and a shop or two, surrounded by thatched cottages and real farms. Dark green Land Rovers were parked in front on the pub. Sweet, rosy cheeked girls in riding gear walked their horses, and the beer was slow, flat and fat .

My campsite, on the rich green pasture, so lush, it made willows weep, bordered a brook, gentling gurgling past my tent. It was just me, a farmer and his son and daughter, and a few hundred cute lambs. Roger, the farmer, was the same age as me, and when I was raiding England, at $10-a-Day, 30 years ago, he was raiding Australia, as a jackaroo, prawn trawler man, and truckie. We both had similar aged kids, but he’d inherited 500 acres of England, to which he was tied, whereas I just had a bike. It gave us both, interesting contemplation of our 54 year old, juxtaposition.

Riding around the moors, farmland and quaint seaside villages of Exmoor in the height of springtime was a sure delight. The sweeping  roadways took on an added allure, as a green, vertical, trimmed hedges formed a ‘wall of death’, that turned mild speed, into a call to acceleration that even Lawrence of Arabia could not resist, seconds before he died.

England in springtime puts new dimension into the colour green. On one of the odd days when the sun shone, every man and his motorbike hit the road, and sweeping and climbing through the English countryside by motorbike, on a sunny day, is a touring treat par excellence, making up for all the other rigours of riding hand over fist.

Glastonbury just popped up on the GPS by coincidence, as if to say, come here now. I had heard all the stories, but wasn’t ready for what presented itself, as smack in the middle of town the polite English speaking woman on my GPS told me I had arrived at my destination. The square was packed full of more weird colourful and  semi inasne people that you could fit ina Fellini movie. This was the Star Wars bar, earth embassy. More ley lines, Kind Arthur tales, and spiritual diversity packs the main street of this place , than anywhere on earth. I tried and I tried to make it more that 100m from the backpacking central square, but it took me hours, in fact 2 days, to make any progress.

There were that many interesting things to see and do, I was trapped like a fly in golden syrup.

For starters, I bumbled into a conference called Megolithomania, with more writers, explorers, and new agers than I knew existed, and book signings for several new release books, that lined up, one after the other. It you had a view on matters Stonehenge, Egypt, Druid of leylines….there was a writer with a book to be released there for you. After contributing to a discovery of megaliths in Australia’ s Daintree, where our find was welcomed with disinterest or derision, is was like walking into the promised land, finding a whole profession of experts who were brimming with of amazing speeches, slides and insights, that made Australia look totally backwards on the subject.

The last book on the secrets of the Sphinx theorises that the undersize Pharaoh head was a late add on, after the Jackal style dog, Anubis, the Doberman with rabbit ears, was defaced of nose and eras in one of the many marauding armies arrivals, and besides, the Sphinx was never at sea level, it was in a moat flooded by the Nile annually, where embalming rituals saw son of the dead, dad, pharaoh, wash dead dad’s guts in the moat, to sanctify them before embalming. Or something like that. One thing is for sure, those Egyptologists are into a massive cover up, as any idiot can see, multiple underground chambers below the sphinx have been blocked in, or filled with concrete. Something to hide, oh dear Iluminati establishment?

There is a steep hillock called Tor in Glastonbury , on a site so sacred it had had Neolithic types in deep ritual here for centuries, it was  the main pilgrimage centre for middle age types lobbing in from Europe. Christianity was founded here by the bloke who took Jesus off the cross.

The remains of Glastonbury Abbey, out my window here, are on view for 5 quid, and are a testament to all that is evil about the my Church of England’s, founding history. Horny and horrible Henry the Eighth,  as you may recall, wanted to dump his Spanish wife, for a French bitch, and was not happy when the Glastonbury Abbot would not agree to his demands for a divorce, so Henry burnt down the abbey, dragged the head abbot around, tied to a fence, cut his guts out whilst alive, stuck his head on a stake, and with it, burnt the most precious library in Christendom: to ashes….and this ladies and gentlemen, is how the Church of England was formed. With this limited historical background, I was somewhat pissed off, on enquiring who pocketed my 5 quid entry fee to the ruined Glastonbury Abbey, to be told the Church of England trousered the money…after their founder had wrecked the place.

But the real action was just ahead. Obeying the GPS as I cut and sliced down mile after mile of Wiltshire laneways, I was off in pursuit of the real deal in paranormal signs…I was off looking for crop circles. For crop circles, you need crops, and as spring raises the wheat, so too do ET’s flatten a bit. And the centre of all things crop, and all things Neolithic mystery, is Avebury in Wiltshire, where the world’s biggest stone circles make Stonehenge look like a weary tourist trap. What was it about this area, that gave birth to more than 5000 year of ceremony and pilgrimage? Encoded in those stones, was more than just quartz crystal. Crude as they may seem, the Avebury Stones are the early editions of man’s 12000 year pursuits in building megaliths, pagodas or cathedrals on a grid of sacred sites, where Avebury,  like Glastonbury, is the intersection point of all sorts of energetic magic, beyond the 1% spectrum we humans can detect. This grid, now complete, after thousands of years of work, stand ready, as the unity consciousness grid, for the time, maybe post 2012, when humanity realises it’s us, not me, that is our path. If not, its bye bye planet earth.

So when you have crop circles laid strategically at the edge of the Avebury circles, it’s seemingly not just a coincidence. The controlled media just dismiss the new batches of crop circle as the work of pranksters, but any trained observer, can easily detect the clumsy tread print, and board shifting marks of man-made crop circles, that make up less than 10% of the maybe 100 or more crop circles arriving, some in an instant, during daylight hours, all around Wiltshire. Some arrive at the rate of 7 in one night. That would need about 700 drunk pranksters all out flattening wheat on the one night.

The Masons, doing the grubby dirty work of their unidentified  Iluminati masters, may have erected their typical spire obelisk as a message on the hill overlooking Avebury, but the ET circle-makes ignore them , imprinting their circles all around the evil obelisks, in defiance. Go ET.

The  crop circle that most impressed me, was a huge, geometrically perfect series of spinning, ying and yang cycles,  on a rotor, which had only be made some 48 hours before I arrived. If farming pranksters made this one, they should give up farming, and take up geomancy and design sales. But it was obvious that 100 drunks didn’t make this mega glyph.

Since the 70’s, the circles have evolved , from a basic circle, to forms so geometrically complex and beautiful, that they hint at something very big ahead, if one just joins the dots.

One crop shows the exact star formation at Dec 12, 2012.

So it was no surprise, when I slipped out of my tent at night, to see a wee UFO light bubble, dancing along the horizon, like the sing-a-long dot in the Aeroplane Jelly add.

It had been a great day with the ‘croppies’, having had a picnic in one huge circle, after a photographic session using long poles, as choppers and ultra lights photographed from above. The Silent Circle cafe bookshop, the world’s one and only crop circle base station, was the scene of a hour or two’s chat with Charles, croppie prince, and we could only conclude, that the veils keeping humanity asleep, are looking like being torn asunder, real soon. Bear in mind, the 2012 Mayan agenda, says 2012 is the year earth’s consciousness shifts form a ‘one world’  global perspective, to a galactic perspective, suggesting we then join in a bigger community, and todate, the Mayan projections have been without fault.

The incredible SHOUTING messages from above, are seemingly being ignored, as local traffic simply goes to work, down roads alongside the amazing new circles, without batting an eyelid. Talk about asleep. Humanity is arguably in for some huge shocks ahead. The hypnotism that ignores the truth, across mystic, medicinal, archaeological, and energetic paths, has a use by date. Is it 2012?

My guess, is when or if the ETs do arrive, the governments will do all they can to create fear and panic, to portray what will likely be a helping hand, as a killing claw. The years of cover up on the ET issue defy truth, and add to the list, as long as your arm, of the world’s blind denials.  Hey, if they can do what they did at 911, with impunity, they can do anything. And they are.

But bugger the asleep world, as I am wide awake, and me, I love the gifts and hints from the ET croppies, with their instant zap blasts, that bend stalks like as though they were melting plastic pipes, but with no heat, and no harm to the stalks. Seeds taken from the circles are robust and vigorous fathers. The circles themselves are beautifully charged, literally, and are a lovely place to have a picnic, and a little lie down, as did I.

Synchronicities has been running rampart of late, as are karmic loop lessons, as time seems to speed up. One such synchronicity turned up with immaculate conception, leading me immediately from crop circles and Neolithic megaliths, to the greenie, alternate, liberal, healers home, of Brighton, where the Peer may have burned down twice, but the town is alive with hip insight. And just as one thing leads to another, I walked back into the life of my long lost flatmate George, Georgeous to be complete, who had, like the wise and the alert, made her way into a clean life, of fun loving service, sweeping me along into new worlds of life force nutrition, in a whole new menu of raw food antics,  that makes TV chef Jamie Oliver look positively stuffy. I could learn from George, George could learn from me. And given our propensity to automatic fire jokes and quips, we had a right regular laugh.

In the background, the Times ran photos and newly revealed storied on the world’s shameful turning away from the massacre of Tamils by the Sri Lankan government, under the convenient Bush era excuse, of rebranding freedom fighters as terrorists. 20,000 were massacred.  Triple the official line. That was double the Iraq 2 year total, and 5 times the comparable period in Afghanistan, or smack war deaths.

The Sri Lankans mowed down the surrendering leaders with automatic fire, clean and clear into the group holding white flags. Doctors in field camps pleading with the Red Cross to have the shelling of the hospitals stopped, saw the coordinates used to shell the dead and bleeding, 2 hours after the pleas were made. They rounded up pinned civilians on a beach, and killed them at a rate of 1000 a day, breaking all international agreements that disallow overhead, shard shattering munitions to be directed at hapless civilians in ragged tents on a sand spit. The human rights abusers all got together at the UN the next week, to sanction the Sri Lankans crimes against humanity. So much for the UN being there to protect humanity. The UN should be disbanded forthwith: it’s a disgrace, and a sham, some say, me being one. After the world wept when the Tsunami killed thousands in Sri Lanka, no one batted an eyelid when the Tamil massacre made Afghanistan look peaceful. Peaceniks, deluded by the Obama myth, have in 2009, dropped their cause, in the absurd belief that Obama means peace, even after he just doubled the attack forces in Afghanistan.

On the other side of the duality, I met filmmaker Nikki Williams who has been working on the Time of the Sixth Sun, who like me, has been tracking the shifting consciousness towards the seemingly tidal shift near 2012. Her work reveals the thinking of the world’s best writers, shamans and teachers, mine is more a personal spiritual comedy. Let’s face it, the Rapture could be fun for all the family, if everyone just lightens up a bit. This cosmic gig is as much a comedy as it is a drama, given the understanding of the instant, replay relief of reincarnation, coupled to the likely Luna Park ride ahead. Hey, from my viewpoint, it’s time to get out of the rat’s exercise wheel, and onto the merrier go around.  Besides, word has it that we all get free upgrades in the cosmic game: in   next big match. 6 billion have turned up for the grand final. There won’t be crowds like this around forever, if the male fertility rates keep dropping through the floor. And given the seemingly dramatic drop in fertility, through a range of fake oestrogens and poisons in your cool aid water, is infertility really such a bad way to reduce our population from 6 to 2 billion, without bloodshed? But we are at peak load population right now, and some freaks like me, reckon all our karmic reincarnation contracts,  contain, access all areas, backstage passes, a place, where, ahead, as on the stage above, so too will it be in the mosh pit below. It will rock.

London, in 1975, had a notable song. I recall it coming through the ceiling speaker of Sainsbury’s, as I filled my shopping trolley, via Capitol Radio.

The opening line was, “God Save the Queen, its a Fascist Regime”, sung in rather non dulcet tones, by one, Sid Vicious, of the Sex Pistols.

The album was called “Never mind the Bollocks”. Idiot coppers deemed the word, ‘Bollocks’, an obscenity, and confiscated the first releases, hitting headlines everywhere, and creating massive sell-outs.

My arrival in London, after several decades away, came on and Abbey Road album cover, picture perfect, 28degree, sunny day. London looked beautiful, in its springtime greens. It was not the same funky London I had lived in the mid 70’s. Just of Church St, Kensington, not far from the murdered Di’s palace, was where I had onced lived in romantic blur of a 20 year olds romance. The street where I lived, was then full of meagre Morris, and rusted Bedford vans, and on return, it was wall to wall with black Aston Martins and Mercs. The plunderers had made a motza in London in the last 15 years, and it was on show everywhere. Money for one beer in 2009 would have bought 7 or 8 in 1975. London was a lot more sober, wired, and flash.

Where London was awash with radical street fashion in 1975, in 2009, corporate fashion muscle wiped the soul of London fashion away like a deodorised kitchen chemical. Gone were all but a tiny residue of truly hip, out there looks. In 1975, 30 or 40 Kombis and their owners lived permanently on the street outside Australia house, in a live in motor mart for travellers like me, breezing it in at “Europe on $10 day”. 100 bucks is tight these days. Parking in London is now a matter for the pay to play elite. So arriving by motorbike suddenly made a lot of sense, and a space for a car would cost more than a hotel room, in most countries I had just visited.

In the 70s’ coppers were armed with a mere baton, and a helpful attitude. In 2009,  London coppers wear flak jackets whilst on traffic patrol, and the street guys have sub machine guns, and looks on their faces, like they would like to unload a magazine or two into anyone daring the stare them down. Like me.

Whereas in NYC, with tens of thousands homeless on the streets, the British, to their eternal shame, have made begging illegal, in a rich get richer, the poor get the picture scenario, complete with posters imploring the public, not to give a beggar a penny. British have a way of covering up their infections, like mascara over a one inch deep boil. Making conversation with bright young girl, forced to sleep under bridges, through her tears, it became apparent how desperate life in London could become, when they fine you for begging: as if you could find money for a fine before food. Homeless, under this rule have one option left: crime. Besides, British jail has cable TV and a warm bed.

British press as a general rule are at the lowest of world standards, and highest on the world ranking of trivial judgmental gossip.

Meanwhile the demonic symbology just evades everyone’s senses, plastered all over the architecture of the church, parliament, bureaucracy and royal palaces of world’s number one Iluminati base station. Distracted by Da Vinci kiddie grade understanding, the public never dig deeper, to wonder what is behind the ‘Sum-of-the-Aryan symbology, the serpent/dragon residues of the Draco, Draconian, and Dracula sources and sorcery, that is the unbelieved truth behind the ruling agendas, deep into history.

I dropped in the House of Commons, the people’s court, via a series of machine gun and sharp shooter gun emplacements, complete with anti tank technology, in a general understanding that there is nothing in the peoples parliament, that is really about us the people. Hundreds of surveillance cameras recorded my every move, and a rate per head, of 340 shots for every man woman and child, in UK, each day.

Inside the debating room, as in all Westminster Parliaments, no one was listening. Maybe 10 of the 600 odd parliamentarians were in attendance. No one even cares, that the antiquated parliament, has seating that can squeeze in just over 400 members, while there are over 600 elected members. After two weeks in the UK, the usual manipulation of the fall of Gordon Brown’s government was well underway, just as planned, with the crisis in MP’s being sacked, resigning or withering under a hammering from expenses related exposes, in readiness for the Iluminati’s next version of 33 degree Mason, Blair, in his all smiling Tory equivalent. The Tory’s are not elected yet, but you could bet anyone’s mortgage drowned house, that it will happen.

The pommes are a sickly looking lot, having had a traditional diet that would kill a lab full of fat rats, and this added to the UK’s chemical crisis, where the water itself, direct from the streams, is polluted with prosac, which when coupled to the centre aisles of Tesco, selling evil processed food, to traffic delayed and time short shoppers, and you have a big mess on your hand. The government, of course, through its own dedication to pumping chemicals and Govt approved deadly food and cosmetic poisons onto the people, are as complicit in the mass murder of their population as anyone. So it was no wonder some waffling MP, on the floor or Parliament, was making a speech to no one other than some dosing parliamentary butlers, and a handful of tourists behind the glass wall, like me, about the growing stroke problems. The speech lamented the fact that stroke and cardiovascular disease was now rampart in the UK, more so than anywhere in Europe, and the figures were on the rise like the bankruptcy rate. And that was just heart disease, costing the community 7 billion quid a year. That’s before, or course the other scourge, cancer, was accounted for, attacking 1 in 2 men, up from 1 in 30 or 40, 50 years ago. Some freak once wrote, that in the last days, disease will be rampant. No one seems to notice, degenerative disease is beyond plague proportions. But ads of the eternally young, in advertising and TV images of  the British, ignore the deeply personal truths, and we just accept the new ways to die, as a regular part of life.

Motoring around London, under do-as-the-GPS-says ease, is quite fun, in a bike courier kind of way. Harrods was a treat for non shoppers like me.There is not a thing I need, or for that matter, could fit on a bike already loaded like a Lancaster before a bombing run, so, given freedom from wanton desire, Harrods presented a chance to see, feel and touch all sorts of design and manufacturing excellence. I had no idea what a rack of slowly spinning tubes was for, but hey, I don’t have a dozen automatic watches I need to keep wound up by walking. So why not buy a cabinet to wind them? I had no idea there was such huge range or watches available over the counter at $300,000 a piece. How fun. I tell ya, it’s getting tough and competitive to be rich these days. Just when you think you have made it, by blowing $30,000 on a gold Rolex, some fuca turns up to lunch, 10 minutes late, according to his $300,000 watch.

Golfers can get cool, by aquiring a mini Hummer style golf buggy, just in case the bunkers get real.

And they had a real wooden horse, not one of those cheap fibreglass ones, as a saddler and polo outfitters accessory. The poor fucas working in the perma-perfume of the entry areas of Harrods…if they only knew how carcinogenic that blur of smell really is. It’s just as well they sell cosmetics along with perfumes, as the tox’d sales assistants need every bit of makeup they can muster, to cover up their work induced toxicity. Just like air hostesses…getting the equivalent of 5 full body Xray radiation scans, every long haul flight. There ain’t enough atmosphere at 30,000 feet, to keep out the radiation , that pieces a planes shell like air.

Heading out of London, on a sunny Friday afternoon, it seemed only logical to do the super yuppie thing, and go via the Park Lane BMW service centre, on the way for a smashing weekend in the Cotswolds. Oxford, cute pubs, charmed B&B’s and my favourite human here in Europe, Anoesjka,  my most reincarnated, beautiful, repeat offending partner, who was flying in from Holland for the weekend. Like all BMW service centres, time stress is the main ingredient, but having all day, I waited around the cafes and yard hands of Battersea, in pursuit of that $10 part, the one that stops the back break jamming closing, and throwing me under a truck. In Oxford, the evening before riding to Birmingham Anoesjka at Birmingham airport, I camped in the most overprized, overrated and only campsite in Oxford, where nearly dead British grey nomads but the grey into campervan, sit and rot retirement. The poor Brits, they really have overindulged, and underexposed themselves, to the point where retirement is a series of failing health episodes, and excitement in the Tesco shopping aisles on a battery powered, wheel chair trolley.

The pub to drink at, for and old rower’s private school boy like me, is the Head of The River Pub, close to the finish lines of Oxford vs Cambridge duals. In my day, Head of the River races were closer to, Give Me Head, of the River, after the em-blazer’d, boater adorned, drunken lads were allowed an annual liberty or two, with the new thing booze, in the car parks alongside the rowing races. Messy.

And at Oxford, a day after the private school boys had slugged down the champagne bottles, after their last exam, the waterside pub was more about recovery that recidivism.

The gorgeous Anoesjka arrived in the very worst of British weather, and after being ripped off by the ever deceptive marketing practises of the new UK, paying a night out for 60 minutes in the car park, we made our way onto the grey, wet blur of the UK motorways, pulling into to dry our shoes in Stratford on Avon, where Shakespeare  once put his boots under the electric hand dryers of  the riverside pub. As the weekend clouds parted, the green laneways, and ridiculously quaint and pretty villages of the Cotswolds, made a weekend two-up by BM’ kinda fun, with quaint pubs by night, and cosy Bed and Breakfast lofts for lazy sleep ins. Every time I catch up with Anoeskja, (maybe soon Dr Timmermans, PHD) it’s an ever increasing story of acquired wisdom, and joyful family,  ranging across all fields of politics, food, athletics and spiritual growth. What a star.

May the relationship rock on through a few dozen more intertwined lifetimes.

Birmingham is pretty grim city, but it is home to the cutest, most colourful hostel I have yet seen, and who cares what is happening outside, when Birminham Backpackers in going off inside.

But Ireland calls, if for no other reason, than this: I’ve never been there.

The Disunited States of America

I’ve wondered, once personally settling on the analogy that LA is the mouth piece of America,  what then, is the equivalent body part for New York?

Is it the brains, or the sphincter? Maybe it’s the pineal, but with a bad blockage? I ain’t figured it. New Yorkers see it, in their number plates, as the Empire State.

So how fares the Empire?

I didn’t quite know what to expect after two days and 1600k, on the road in Mexico, when driving to return my hire car, and jump a jet from Mexico to NYC, in the midst’s of the world’s paranoia about swine flu. The viral source was blamed on Mexico, to deflect heat from the real source in the US,  where, with aid of some toxic US export pig farming techniques across the border, (after the offending US pig farmer had been fined out of his fat soaked profits in the States) the US exported the new strain south. The most dangerous bug was being propagated by CNN, and the rest of the brain dead, colon fermented US media, with is easy to deliver, paranoid news exports to the poor Mexicans.

Anyone who got flu in Mexico, was deemed a swine flu victim…500,000 die each year of regular flu.  It generally leads to death by pneumonia’s drowning.  At one point, the toxic media claimed had 145 Mexicans had died of swine flu . The media barely bothered to apologise when it ended up only 7 of the 145 were swine flu.

But by this stage, getting to Cancun airports saw me pass through more roadblocks than the road to truth. Firstly, there were the ridiculous army manned blockades, with soldiers wearing masks, apparently, with US funding, trying to stem the flow of drugs to the US, whilst the US did nothing to stem the arms flows for Mexicans, who could buy cheap assault weapons, in the US redneck states with impunity. Meanwhile, the fully corrupt Mexican police made sure it was business as usual, at about 20 mutilated and often tortured, and dumped bodies a day. And the idiots were worried about one pig flu death a day?  And all the while, the US consumed its way to a wired or stoned existence, by the Mexican delivered truckload.

Then there were the impromptu medico blockades…often 400m up the road from the army blockades, and 500m short of the Federali’s blockades. All were a useless waste of time. I passed through dozens of them. One, and only one, scanned my body temperature. This they also did entering Cancun airport, but nothing was done at the US end. Hey, with Iluminati guys like Gore and Cheney standing to reap millions in profits from their scam on flu drug sales, why slow business? And surprise, surprise, the last big sale of anti flue drugs was 3 years ago. And all of a sudden, its pandemic flu time again. And you guessed it, the last massive dose sold, has a use by date.  It’s now. Time for nose in the trough again, eh Cheney? And all you liberal greenies out there, like me, don’t be fooled by Gore’s Nobel Prize, he has been in on the dark side for years. I remind you, they gave mass murdered Kissinger a Nobel Peace Prize.

And I quickly add, Gore’s carbon crusade was planned 30 years back, and is packed with purposeful fraud. But that is another long story.

So it was a long drive through Mexico, from the pot-in-public, chilled out Zipolite,  the filter trap for the world’s insane intelligentsia…to NYC, filter trap for the world’s wired intelligentsia. After 5 months in the next best thing to the third world, a gear shift from 5^th to 1^st was going to stress the syncro. But NYC has a lot going for it, and my mind takes but a nano second wind its tachometer to NYC pace, and stay there, redlined, all day.

So I was pretty happy to get out of the fast dying American Airlines, the airline the is indeed the AA of air travel. Too many years on the piss, and AA can’t even manage to cook its guests an onboard meal these days. But the moment you strike up ya’ first conversation in New York, its heaven. Besides, they speak English here, a great luxury after lumbering with Spanish for 5 months.

I was expecting more flu clearance paranoia in the US, after several countries had already closed their borders to us Mexican’s, some, like China, incarcerating us. But nothing. Into the shuttle, and through the dark, wet, James Dean poster streets we drove.

Accommodation in NYC is exorbitant at best, so I had already resigned myself to a dorm bunk, which, in NYC, can be trying, given the hours travellers keep around here. 28 years ago, when I last lived here, we were usually just heading out to breakfast at sundown. That was when they reopened Studio 54, and my travelling companion girlfriends had roped me into their elite circle friends around the 18 head work team, who were the door staff at Studio. And being that everyone in NYC needed to know someone, to get back into their newly reopened Studio 54, we were treated like rock stars. From dusk, to well, dusk.

But at 53, my agenda was not about after midnight, this time around. Back in the late 70’s NYC was a pretty tough city. Tourists never went into the caves below know as the Underground, as not all came back up intact. There were more parts of town that were off-limits than on. You needed exceptional eye control in the street, to insure you never made eye contact, if you were brave enough not to wear shades. But despite the tough side, NYC 1979, had plenty of soul, spunk and eccentricity. The film Taxi Driver captured New York in 1970s, just perfectly.

So it was with considerable surprise to find New York, now totally different, beyond friendly, and seemingly quite consciously alive.  This well being consciousness had grown out of the pavement like unstoppable weeds.  It was a low fat, gluten free, no-car-horns-allowed, potpourri of eccentricity. On speed.

Every post 911, vain, would-be super hero had joined the NY Fire Department, so they could ride the big red trucks, usually pointlessly, but with wild, sirens blaring, escapes though a town,  a town seemingly  either made of match wood, or faulty smoke detectors.

People still bought impossibly large and hairy dogs, and winced as they pooper-scoopered their doggy’s do.

My task was to equip myself to be fully independent of everything that was NYC, by procuring enough light weight camping gear to enable me to live on an Adriatic headland until 2012.  It was an expensive exercise, self justified by leaving the actual purchase to the day of my 54th birthday.  As well as camping gear, I stocked up on a bunch of new books about the acceleration of consciousness , towards 2012, (my pet interest), along with some books to slow me down on the subject of the heart and stillness.  The later, not to be read whilst in NYC.

To mix it up a bit, I took a dreamy morning off, to glide by push bike through the fresh spring growth, of a sunny day in Central Park, followed abrubtly by Not Rays Pizza in the hardened Brooklyn. Noticing that in Brooklyn, I was also in Muslim Central,  so I thought I would have some shit stirring fun, and bought myself a $12, Mohamed perfect, Yasser Arafat scarf,  and promptly caught the underground back to the heart of darkness, Wall Street, for Friday ‘arvo, knock off drinks with the beleaguered traders.

Sitting there in the throng of yuppies and ‘greeders’, the beer conversation went something like this, ‘Ah, so, where are you from?”….as they looked nervously at my Bin Laden attire, where of course I took delight in coughing bit, and replying, ‘Who me?…Oh…I just flu in from Mexico’.

Catching the train back from Wall St, just sitting, waiting on the platform, buried deep inside my high volume Ipod world, I noticed an older Afro American being helped, stumblingly along the platform.

Clearing some bench space to seat the man who was obviously in great pain, we struck up a conversation sparked by his plea for a quarter, to eat. I suppose most New Yorkers are so jaded by the begging in the midst of such opulence, that requests for a $quarter rarely get air. But I wanted to know what was going on here, was this real?

Real? ….. well, it was indeed a tragedy on broken legs. Harry, as was the withered 57 year old man’s name, had been shot,(in the head I add), after getting in the way of thieves in his 20’s. Since then, his wounds had destroyed his balance, and he was perpetually falling, breaking things, and his last fall, after a hit by a taxi, had left him in a big mess.

The disgrace of America, is that it abandons its own, in the Iluminati’s presidential pursuit of funding the world’s biggest army, and it’s evil foreign interventions. America second biggest disgrace, is its people’s ignorance of where their money is spent.

Harry was entered into the US social security net, but that did not mean he was able to eat, or cover medical expenses. In his shaking hand he held a single white bread sandwich. He asked me for a hand, in simply buying drink, and he experienced his very first Gatorade, via me. Then the train arrived. Harry reckoned he would be fine, but he was so crippled that I had to drag, then carry him into the car, swearing at the guards for closing the doors on us, whilst Harry’s crippled foot dragged behind, jammed in the closing hiss. On board, heading for Harlem, Harry insisted he would be OK. He wouldn’t be. So I pumped his hand with my greenbacks, and rallied around the black commuters, to find a helper to get Harry off the train at 93^rd.

I teared up as I climbed the stairs out of the tube. What kind of fucking cruel insanity allows a government to wage war on the world, whilst turning their backs on their own? For fucks sake, even Mexico has some sort of public heath for all.  But not the US. The US sends $1600 PA to every Israeli just to insure war is forever. The US, The Fourth Reich in jeans?

It was the same again the next day, just shopping for some laundry detergent, in the hip, gay, Chelsea district. This time, it was seemingly healthy young black guy, but with a face so beset with pain and tears, you could not walk past him, as he begged, maybe for the first time in his life, for 50c to make a phone call. He had been robbed, and was destitute. New York can still be a tough place to live. There are 30,000 homeless people trying to survive in New York, as the limos line up, their drivers waiting onboard all day, simply to drive their pig wealthy owners home. It’s a disgrace.

But whist it’s a disgrace, it is also graceful, and it could be fairly said, that New York contains both the very best, and the very worst of humanity. It is an exact replica of the world’s consciousness. It is an exact replica of my own consciousness. And yours. Everyone’s, infact. It’s the reptilian wrapped around the ying and the yang. The duality of good and evil. Its Earth, 2009.

Moseying down town to price some camping gear, I stumbled across a big hole. No one too seems determined to fill it in, given that is been there since 911, 2001. There on the hoarding was a graphic of what was proposed. Where the twin tower’s foundations first underground explosions went off, (with enough thermite to melt down a steel works), were to be two giant underground waterfalls, sort of like the Hudson was following through to China, in some perfect perverse symbol of US’s current financial reality.

There was construction underway, where the tower containing the embarrassing Enron files, and the Mayor’s emergency response office, once contained in 42 levels that  just decided to fall over, from the inside columns out, in perfect choreographed demolition. No one really noticed that this building was neither hit, nor was seriously  on fire, nor had suffered any serious damage. It’s just collapsed as a sympathy vote.  Yeah, right.

Then off course, the 10 second fireball that was reduced to a mild suffocated smokey residue, managed miraculously to melt basement steel to red hot puddles that stayed  red hot for weeks, dozens of stories below the fire. The fireball was a mere odd 1000 degrees cooler than what was needed to melt steel, let alone explode it. It was just coincidence that George W’s cousin was in charge of security at both the ‘hijackers’ departure point, and the security that ‘rewired’ both towers ‘security’  in secret, weekend work before the miraculous collapse. Being that the Bush family had been 40 year partners of the Bin Ladens, is was sure a good idea that the only plane in US skies, after 911, was the one removing the prime suspects family.

But books, films, documentaries and dozens of eye witness accounts tell a much clearer story of the most outrageous case of treachery against the American people by the American people, in modern history.

To my mind, the unquestionably most mind blowing aspect of 911, is the intensity of the cover up, the criminality of the media compliance, and US societal ignorance up of the single most, outrageous, conspiratorial act, of the last 100 years …the fact that most of the world still thinks that the tower demolition was an act instigated by Bin and his Arabs, is to me, gobsmacking. The evidence undermining the official story is so extensive, so well circulated, and so blaringly obvious, that I am left wondering, how deep is the shit, that this planet is really in?

The king has no clothes. His balls are dangling away on parade, yet the crowd still admires the sparkle of his nonexistent, imaginary clothes.

Anyway, things worked out just fine for the 911 planners. The building owner, who was facing an asbestos clean-up bill of more than the tower’s sale value, doubled his doe on the insurance scam.
George and Dick got the wars their handlers needed.  New Patriot Acts advanced the Sum of the Aryans’ agenda. The world is now attuned to the guns, detectors  and surveillance being pointed at us,  Joe the plumber. Overall, from the Black Hands viewpoint, 911 was an outstanding success.

Buying some camping gear seemed somehow appropriate, alongside the big hole. When I entered the Tent and Trail shop, a lightning bolt hit next door, at ground zero, that sounded identical to a bomb exploding. Everyone in the shop winced then ducked, reassuring me that Zeus, if no one else, agreed with me, and was sending his compliments.

The disgrace that saw even progressive, inquisitive media, like our ABC and SBS, toe the official US government line unquestioningly, to my mind, remains a journalistic disgrace, lain at their feet, tantamount to Colin Powell’s career wrecking WMD bullshit, to the UN  and us, the world. Lucky my radio show was not on air at 911, as I was a cynic from the moment I watched the non prestressed building, made of bend-before-explode steel, explode live on my late night Australian TV. Having designed chaired, and then project managed the construction of a 30 storey prestressed building, I knew a bit more about these matters than most. So had I hit the radio waves with my cynicism from day 1, 911, I would have been lynched. Now at least, I suppose we can talk freely about this matter, but still the truth eludes the masses.

When walking to my appointment with Zeus, I came across a scrum of some 100 journalists crowded outside a police station, a few hundred metres from ground zero. What was this fuss all about, I wondered, wandering up to the most mis-fitting print jouno I could spot, attired in an immaculate suit. Here we had the press of the best and brightest city on earth, mere meters away from where the biggest piece of journalistic subterfuge, remains an open wound, and what could it be, I wondered, that had the whole pack on alert, here in downtown NYC? What mindless piece of public distraction was today’s hot story all about?

It wasn’t about how the President and All His Men had destroyed the towers.

That’s not a story.

No, today all the headlines were about Keiffer Sutherland’s annual act of insignificant mischief, (he had head butted someone), and was about to turn himself  in. World headlines found this demanding viewing. You can deceive the entire world with bullshit about 911, but when there is a little bloodied nose in a night club, it’s HUGE NEWS. The well attired Vanity Fair jouno waiting around, explained the days press pack agenda to me, and from there, I went on the raise the 911 media conspiracy audacity, and with some mutual reassurance, we both went into long, head nodding debate, about the perversity of a world media that averts its eyes from the 911 truth, whilst zooming in, with 500mm lens, on socially sick trivia.

New York for beginners is all about walking. Mile and miles of intensively interesting life keeps the feet busy, and the head agaze. Where locals always jump the walk by scampering underground,  by comparison, newbies walk.

NYC. It’s huge, it’s fascinating, and it’s all laid out with street numbers that reassuringly track your progress and location.

I wana feel a part of it, New York> New York. I wana wake up> in a city> that never sleeps,( but I don’t want to do in on uppers).

Giant WHOLEFOOD stores flood the city, where checking out punters, cue to pay at one of 30 pumping cash registers, holding seemingly fresh food in their hand , deluded into believing that the WHOLEFOOD brand assures them that they won’t be the one in two, who now gets cancer. The food seems fresh, big,  and bold….but it’s just as toxic, and packaged as ever. There is a about a teaspoon a day of hard to remove toxins in everyone’s urban diet these days. 3 of 4 apples  now need to be eaten, here in 2009, to provide the same nutrition as one apple in 1959.  Such is the ruin we have wrought on Gaia’s soil.

I met up with a beautiful friend, and Australian mother who had lived in NYC for over 20 years, and we did lunch across the road from her families Tribeca home, one of the 1000 rare NYC homes with garage. I quietly smiled as she unfolded happy story after happy story, one of which caught my attention. She, like half the world, have faced one of the dozens of recently arrived diseases, brought on in large part, by the  toxic modern world, and the last time we had met, I had suggested she try using a product, that her naturopath had subsequently encouraged, called Zeolite.  Zeolite is a simple volcanic mineral, with a honeycomb molecular structure, in which there is a small positive charge that has a way of attracting, caging, then expelling toxins and heavy metals, from inside the cells,to out, via the waste removal paths. The drug cartels are desperate to kill it off. But my friend, much to the seeming horror of her doctors, had got well. The same doctor, asked, what protein was my friend using, and was confused when her answer included the simple and well known Spiralina.  Its 2009, and he has never heard of Spiralina? And he swore the Hippocratic oath, from Hippocrates, who said all cures can be found in  food? The doctor thought a nice fat steak it what was needed. What hope is there, with Dr Ignorant idiots like this for healers? But in NYC, there are many in the know,  who are wise up about survival in the toxic wasteland, that are the centre aisles of urban shopping, and the bathroom products we adrons ourselves with.

Poor old NYC is going the way of the Fourth Reich itself….its aging and, arguably going under. It won’t be too many decades hence when Americans kids will be working in sweat shops making Nikes’ for Chinese wrappers.

I look out my hotel window, a Last-minute.com, $50 a night escape from the dorm,  located here, around the corner from the Empire State building, and a bit further away from the more elegant, and glorious tribute to the steel building mastery of  NYC city, and there it is>>> the Chrysler building. Along with the Brooklyn Bridge, the underground system, even the 70’s post modern ghost, the twin towers, NYC is the city of steel, where the US’s greed for cheap energy,  forging steel from iron, to create the world’s most powerful industrial nation. Cars weighed in by the ton, and the energy they burnt, said fuc you to the places the US oil was raped from. So looking out to the star of the show, the all steel Chrysler building, it was to me, and interesting moment in the rise and fall of the  Fourth Reich,  the USA, to read that the industrial giant Chrysler had gone into bankruptcy last week. The world biggest car builder, GM, is hard on its heels.

Across the road the Rothchild’s controlled Bank Of America is busy plundering the last survival $stash of the debt buried US, and the nations ‘savoir’, the great deceiver, Obama is doing his masters work, by raiding the till, the piggy bank, and borrowing  trillions to ‘bail out’ the US.

Bail out?

Its no bail out…it’s to  bury the US, in my view.

The latest  Obama, ‘stress tests’ suggest arch criminals like Bank of America and Citibank need yet another $750 billion. If you blew a million dollars a day, from the day Jesus was born, you still would not have spent a trillion dollars. And the US owes many trillions, mostly to  Asia, mainly China. The writing is on the Wall St.

The plan, in my view, is to get the western economies that weakened, that they will be willing to write any legislation that the Iluminati banking cartel wants…and the banking cartel wants a one world, centralised banking system that it can easily control…and with the aid of puppets like Gordon Brown, and Obama the Wonder Boy, the banking cartels are getting what they ordered, as I write. The irony of the filthy deal is that the western governments are borrowing the trillions to enact the bail-out, from the same banking cartels that they are giving the money to save. Unbelievable, if you stop and look at it. The banking cartels lends the State, money it does not have, to bury the State in debt, so the same banking cartel can pocket the bail out funds through the back door. And it’s not the End of Daze?

Streets are lined with desperate and dateless beggars, as the black limos await their master’s call.

Meanwhile the artists, prophets, healers and musicians do their thing. The city is alive with culture, and counter culture, across the counter. Parks are full of music. Posters and T shirts decrying the filthy conspiracy of  911 and its bullshit oil wars… ‘dying for the lie’, are on the streets everywhere, as the voice of people tries to make its way through the pavement, like a Spanish Rose in Harlem.

Last election, Obama and  Hilary Clinton were crawling all over each other, to claim the mantle of the biggest peacenik. Now in power, they are busier than ever, ramping up the Smack Dealers War in Afghanistan, in readiness for a blocking move on China and Russia, to take the Central Asian riches, of the last places the US is yet to rape, where energy riches abound. Pakistan teeters on the edge on implosion, just as planned.  The US is busy next door.  As per usual US  policy, whislt the US populace is kept in the dark, the covert ops in Pakistan to trigger the next Nam are well underway as I write.

The military industrial cartels, the same ones as running the designer bankruptcy games, are licking their lips, as the US populace blindly adores its new president… the one who offered CHANGE, but who pursues Bush’s same game with different spin, the president candidate who offered HOPE,  as hope is intangible, and cost free, and, in short, is hopeless. Has anyone stopped to read the book written by Obama’s chief foreign policy adviser, Brzezinski? The book is a perfect foundation for the Project for a New America, a document that would put a smile of Hitler’s face. Wake up liberal greenies, you are being conned by Obama, just as you were by George W’ seniors successor elect, Billy Clinton. Father Bush had Clinton picked out years ago, just as the black guy president was picked out years ago. Noticed who are the current best bosom buddies of bullshit world peace talkfests…you guessed it….the Bill Clinton and George Senior partnership. Hillary is next, making it 30 years of the designer, Bush-Clintonocracy. Bill was the best Republican President the US has had. Meanwhile, the US, long the work tool of the Bavarian wing of the Iluminati, is  being used, as one writer put it, like this…’America is being used to destroy America.’ How true.

I still love New York, because it’s full of New Yorkers. It’s the Government that worries me. For example. I wandered down into the underground, with $2 to feed the slot machine for my last ride of the week. The first two machines I tried, failed. The next one was being attended by a technician. So I walked around to the fourth option, but before I got there, 120kg and 190cm of black US security guard had Sumo hit me at grid iron speed, no explanation, nothing, just whamo.

As I recomposed myself, with a, “What the hell mate?” I was again manhandled by this US security guy, as it dawned on me that the technician was emptying the cash. A quick, ‘stand back’ would have done, but violence suited the US Govt attitude faster. The next bit stunned me. From the govt thug, “Want me to get a cop”..and make up some false charge and have you taken away in cuffs…

Who’s worried about the crims, it’s the Govt who worries me. I open the paper, and there’s a picture of boy scouts in SWAT team gear, complete with real assault weapons, training up on ‘how to raid a pot plantation”. What the fuc?  Obama the fraud, has just welched on his promise to stop military tribunals ex Guantanamo, and is doubling troops into Afghanistan.

If some civic shit went down in the US, now with its ready to roll concentration camps, Joe the Plumber would be fucked.

In the fluster, with designer same-colour-all-notes, US currency, the ticket machine gobbled my $20 note, instead of an intended $1, and so some deserving , money-for-the-homeless volunteer worker got $18 worth of free rides to work, from my exiting donation. These vollunteers, in NYC, are now on every second corner, as Black and Hispanic neighbourhoods get repossessed at a rate of 8 in 50 homes, as of today’s New York Times.

All this fuss’n a mess’n makes for good entertainment, but life in NYC has a used by date, and as much as I love arriving in the Big Apple, it’s also equally as satisfying to leave.  The big apple was the reward for the horse that one the big race, and these days, NYC isn’t winning every event So, ‘darling sweetie’, where better to depart NYC for, than the traditional, posh summer escape plan, Newport Rhode Island. As a yachty, with little or no addiction to sport other than a penchant for yacht racing, Newport seemed a logical personal Mecca for Rod Bin Sailing. As an Australian yachty, there is some sick and macabre pleasure in walking the turf of the cheating, lying and scheming New York Yacht Club, to relish the historical glee in Australia’s removal of the Auld Mug from the pompous glass box that once housed the America cup. It sat in that box for over 100 years, till Bondy, Ben and Bertrand levered the cup off its bolts with their now, 25 year old, winged keel. The New York Yacht Club still has acres or waterfront lawn mowed at the end of the street called America’s Cup Avenue, just there’s no America Cup races there anymore. I attended the Aussie version of the America Cup in Free’o, where we put on a smashing event, and sportingly gave the Cup back to yet more Americans, who continued their practise of cheating and deception, racing monster cats against inherently slower monohulls.

After the Aussie event, I lived in Free’o for a few months, before sailing over towards Africa, and in the gloom of the Cup hangover, during which time  I had a glimpse of the depression that must have settled over Newport in the last 25 years.

But Newport has survived with considerable grace, and yachting, albeit with a retro flavour, rocks on regardless. With a harbour full of gracious old 12m yachts, and a seasonal  flurry of the world’s most gracious mega yachts visiting as a part of the escape-the-hurricane season, to enjoy the Maine Coast season, an American tradition going back the Vanderbilt glory days, still keeps Newport alive.

We found the only cheap hostel in town, in all its 100 year old, all American timber plank glory, and set about exploration by pushbike. I have never seen anything like this place. The all American dream is so beautifully defined in New England’s timber cottages, in spring time, green, fence-free gardens, with the beautiful American flags fluttering from the poles above the front door. Spring was in the air, and buds were at every limb end, tulip bed and Budweiser bar. Clam chowder, $12 Maine lobsters, fries and buns made a blocked sewer of my well stuffed digestion. Is that with a Coke?

Yacht restoration was everywhere, infact, a school of old timber yacht building was my neighbour, and the students weren’t just restoring old 6 and 12m yachts, they were building new ones, to 1930’s, Olin Stephens plans. If, like me, you had spent 5 years building an opening quaint hotel called the Boathouse, and who had sailed on timber boats since the 50’s, Newport was my sort of  idea of design style heaven.

And it was quite good fun at the bars too. A day trip to Boston saw me drop in on a pack of Volvo 70 yachts, on their around the world race, the biggest thing, I would add, I sailing terms, for the 2008-9 racing calendar. Boston being half Irish, (as well as Boston Legal), was a spot where our tour of the Freedom Trial led us into an Irish Pub, where Volvo competitor Green Dragon was all the talk. Later that night, after too many beers, Billy Burke, the Irish sail master of the Newport Sailing and Athletic Club (where the main athletic sport is raising beers to the gob), had me convinced that I should go to Ireland, where in Galway, I could greet the same Volvo boats after they cross the Atlantic, in all of about 6 days, a trip that would take me 2 or 3 weeks in a regular yacht. A day later, I was on flight to the UK.

But not before a visit to the mansions of Newport. Many unbelievably posh mansions are open to the public, presumably because the posh owners had such twats for kids, that they gave the home to the Newport Preservation Society, before the kids got a look in.

They have this theory in Boston, that some guy called Revere and Adams, and their mates, dumped some tea into the harbour, gave the Brits shit for a while, and theoretically America got independence from Europe and England. I personally think the “Revolution” was just a PR war, where the Brits and Euros never gave anything away. And proof on my theory can be seen in the gilded glory of the European and English mansions that the industrial rulers of the USA have on display in Newport.

Take the Vanderbilt’s mansion known as Breakers. I have done the Palace of Versailles, and a few other pompous gigs, but the Breakers, considering it was mere beach house, shits on any European Palace when it comes to The Lives of the Rich and Famous. Every square inch of the Breakers is a budget, ball breaker.

I was amazed. And in Bellevue Avenue, along the Newport cliff tops, its mile after mile of opulence, and magnificent estates. Servants dishing up grand breakfast, down to the beach with the guests, then some golf and tennis coaching, and maybe some afternoon sailing, all with 7 outfit changes before another grand debutant ball, with presidents, kings of industry, all sliding down the banisters on the servants trays. But that was in the past.

Some, like dear Doris Duke, didn’t know what to do with all her money. She was the richest woman on earth in the 60’s. Daddy had died, like hundreds of thousands of his clients, after he had convinced the world to take up smoking his cigarettes, and dear Doris, she inherited the lot, had no kids, so had camels grace her lawn instead. The lawn, in all its perfection, is now mown by a keen surfer, who looks longingly out to sea, dreaming of waves, who  is trapped by his two kids and a mortgage. But at least he has a job.

I love a good boat bookshop, and so I can only dream of being published on the shelves of the best boat bookshops on earth, in Newport. Not that this story has much to do with boats at the moment, but hey, I’m sure they will renter the story, but as for now, I’m not writing my script. Some other lunatic is doing that.

All that wealth in Newport, and all that energy in New York, tells a tale of capitalisms finest hour. But somehow or other, I get the feeling the clock has just struck one, and America ain’t one anymore. Reporters looking for hope that there is a green sprout of regrowth in the western economy, cited Porches’ success is introductory sales of its latest opulent machine this week. What they didn’t mention, was that the all sales were all in Shanghai.

But much more important changes are underway in America, than mere economic or political changes. All the Alfa male models of politics and industry are crumbling in the States, as a new, more subtle feminie consciousness is being brewed below the headlines. The gnashing of teeth, the exposure of deceptive politics, and a world financial system that turned in world gambling den, are all on display for Joe the Plumber to see, and as he loses his job, his home, and is forced to contemplate what is really important:  hanging on to things, or hanging onto relationships?

The whole Western world’s consciousness is being forced through a process that is indeed both tough, and wonderful. And it’s all tracking exactly as had been predicted and mapped by the Mayans and others, thousands of years ago. And to me, watching it all unfold, and with it, contemplating what is implied in an extension of the calendar, is a treat that sends shivers privately down my spine, as I walk alone, but fully connected to every man and woman on the streets of NYC.

From shipwreck, to Lama head-on….from Caribbean, to Andes, from yachts to bikes. The is a lot more to the Americas, than America. I take up, where I left off, washed up in Cartegena, Colombia.
Cafe Havana. For me, that’s how Cartegena began, and, how Cartegena ended.  Bookmarks of character.

After the gruelling negotiations and then the panga, jeep and bus hike, from the wounded Ave Maria, the first place to introduce me to Colombia’s finest city, was Cafe Havana. A week to the day, and just hours before the dawn taxi run to the airport, Cafe Havana is where it ended. Chapter 1, at least.

Cafe Havana says a lot about Cartegena. On a prime corner in the subprime Getsemani, Cafe Havana is to salsa, what CBGB’s was to rock, in NYC. Only open from Thursdays, and with the band kicking in after 11, Cafe Havana is a house of swinging smile, salsa style.

Around the walls, old posters beam joy from the faces of the greats of salsa, making a nice change from the sullen, oh so cool posters, of the rock bands.

Outside, the cool and coked up doorman negotiate the street. You can get anything you want, at Cafe Havana’s doorstep. Across the street, the dealers hustle pot, coke and coca cola. 20m down the street, the whores giggle amongst themselves, awaiting a man whose base chakra rules his wallet.

The faces of the old, Spanish colonial facades whisper, “I’ve seen it all before’, in their washed out limewash tones.

It wasn’t long before we had secure a hole in wall home, in my case, a room, shuttered and barred,  inches from Getsamani, madness -central.

Getsamani. What a great name for a place, all about get za money, honey. There are more street vendors, hustlers, hookers and hardware working Getsamani, than outside the gates of the 1975 Bangkok Hilton.

I love it. Not so good for sleep, sure. Especially when the touts started blowing their profits up their nose, and washing it down with rocket fuel. For them,  the daily grind either ended in tears, or asleep on a corner.

Everyone’s addiction is well catered for, from gambling, to pet care on the piss.

There are plenty of cities where it’s fun, in the maddest street in town, but in Columbia, madness takes on a whole new demeanour.  Madness, whilst noisy at times, is a more gentle art, in the all accepting Colombia. After Pablo Escobar, what could really be a problem? Even killing Pablo Escobar was a cool blood sport, not far removed from a soccer obsession. “YES! ITS A GOAL! STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES”….AND THE AK47′S ARE RUNNING ONTO THE FIELD! US: 1….. COLUMBIA :   NIL!”

But Cartegena is not just all about the mad, inner circle of Getsmani.  Everything most people outside think of Colombia, is not true. Seemingly, all you have to do is mention the word Colombia to most westerners, and the impacts of years of propagandist media kicks in, and all most people think is , 1. coke…. 2 danger….and  3…they haven’t got to 3 yet. I was the same. But unending stories from yachties and backpackers, coming out of Colombia, told glowing stories. The only risk in Colombia, as the cable TV adds run, is that you won’t want to leave. It’s an almost believable add.

Let me describe Cartegena. Cartegena was once the main Spanish trading city in the Caribbean, and compared to say Portobello, Galle Fort, Cochins old city,  this colonial walled city take the cake, both for its preserved beauty, its size, and its daily spunk.

Cartegena is not just a well preserved antique, its alive with street stalls, bars and cafes, and the old city is used, not just observed. You can wander for days , soaking it all in, and in my case, having spent 5 years hanging around a faculty of architecture, and with a one-time family interest architectural restoration, there were joys to my eyes that others missed, whilst licking their ice creams. I must admit to having spent much of my time in the city, looking up, hoping I was not about to step into  an open drain, as each building had its own unique facade, with their little romantic balconies, held up by beams, thick enough to constitute a forest in one joist.

Harbours wind in and out of the city walls, in a Venetian way, but with only one entrance navigable, if an invader made it into the harbour, he could be filled with canon shot fast.

It does seem a bit strange, that whilst the US pretends to be spending squillions on cleaning up coke in Columbia, that personal possession of 5g of coke, and 15 g of pot, is fully legal. Go figure.

It reminds me of Thailand in the 70’s and 80’s when Nam R&R was the order of the day, drugs were everywhere,  and whilst the US used the pretence of cleaning up the opium infusion, it was really using Thailand for a staging point to hammer the powdered gold, out of the golden triangle. In US body bags. Charming.

Its pretty  much the same deal here. The characters and countries have just got different stage names.

Firstly, we have the excuse.  The war on drugs. ( more like the war funded by drugs). In Thailand, it was smack. In Columbia it’s coke.  Like Thailand, where there were really no big poppy crops inside their borders, the same is true here in Colombia, where the coca fields are mainly in Bolivia.

Like, Thailand, we had two handy boogie men, one internal, one external. You must design these plots, with one core aim in mind, namely, justifying the existence of big budgets for corrupt military and police, and, all their local narco mates in designer suits, and, in government.

In Thailand, we had those rotten commie bastards, in Cambodia, and under the bed, and here in Columbia, we have the new, leftist, Latin America, who have the audacity to hassle Coca Cola.

In Thailand, we had a convenient bunch of hill tribe separatists: in Colombia, fuc me, we have FARC. Both groups provide a marvellous service, justifying a police state, huge arms spending, and loads of jobs for the boys. If the lame separatists lie low, you can always pour a bit of petrol on one of their nests, light the match, and watch the military expenditure requestions soar.

Besides, how the hell would their still be an Ave Maria, had it not been for military needing something to kill the time by. Killing innocent FARC relatives can be quite an inconvenience at time, especially when the footy is on.  Rescuing gringos with crew members in bikinis in much more fun.

So, before James Bond script writers even came up with the idea, the live and let live of Columbia rocks on.

You can get anything you want, in Colombia’s

Getsamani.  For example, I needed a solution the dead Croc syndrome.  So I got a boot maker.

No, not to make me some cowboy winkle pickers.

They make 5,000,000 , $50 Crocs each year, and these squishy , rip-off clogs must account for several deaths, and at least a thousand hospital victims , bed bound at any one time, as anyone who has worn Crocs for any time, will know they are more slippery than Don Rumsfield when things look smooth, but get wet. I’m told they have been banned in some places, probably England, as it always wet there.

I had tried taking blade to the soul, but I needed to go further, so I now possess the world’s only re-souled rubber crocs, and baby, I now stick like shit to a blanket, when things get shitty.

Then I needed a makeover of the face, to take on more of a trendy, intellectual looser look, but outdoing all those fashionistas, who now use retro,  Ray Ban Wayfarers frames, for reading glass frames.

Deep in those street vending lanes, you can find the real deal frames.  Somewhere between the Malcolm X look, and the Victa Lawm mower’s CEO, I have two sets of reading glasses, that put the geek into retro.

I needed more. Like a haircut, and a beard trim. A beard trim is an experience, to this point in my life, that I have not had. Finally my goatie is more good than goat. Although, I admit, it’s a work in progress. At least I no longer, don’t mindlessly shave it off when I get my occasional bimonthly hot shower.

Then, I needed a tailor. At 53, TV and other flatscreens take a toll on your six pack. Sailing on daily basis, on the other hand, soon removes any of those love handles, lacking love.

So everyone of my dacks, as we call them in Oz, had to have 60mm removed from the waist. I’m no fan of the exposed arse crack look, and whilst it may be a fashion statement, no more or less emeritus than looking like a 19 50’s industrialist geek, falling pants are just not my style, so now, my jeans fit.

Then a hat, I figured (being that I will soon be at 4000m), would be needed, so I can either look like a typical dimwit in a lama fur headed sock,  or I could confuse everyone, with beret, half way between Andy Cap, and Charles De Gaul. In red. Either way, there was an element of dimwit in it.

Never ever wear the hat of the local country, when a tourist in that country. If I see another Gringo in Australia, wearing a Crocodile Dundee leather hat, I might just pull out one of those long blades.

At risk of getting caught in one of those, over-50’s moments, with my fly down, I had my shirts cut square, so  I can hang it out… the shirt that is, in style.

To elevate myself above the pimps rattling my bar, again, not the dick type, I moved to the only room In Getsamani, with a balcony, above it all. For a massive $12, I now had 20 more channels on the box, 3 beds, a bathroom, and a view. Life was good. I even got PBS, the only US cable programme, without redneck reactionaries trawling the sewers.

I had already had some personalised T shirts made. These I had embroidered, not screen printed, in the San Blas.

The exercise of translating my already out-there ideas, to a Kuna tribeswoman, had some interesting outcomes. For example, my ‘SAIL FAST, LIVE SLOW’, T shit came back ‘SALI FAST, LIVE SLOW”. Sali?

I haven’t yet had time to fully explain, but I have become disillusioned at the Obama phenomena, once I realised that his appointment of dangerous madmen like Bresinski,  the 1970s  co-author of the Iluminati hand book,  recently revisited in  Bush’s ,” Project for the New America”, was now the US’s leading global strategist, and you don’t need to be Einstein to realise that there is no CHANGE  about Obama, he’s the Iluminati’s new man on the ground despite his seemingly liberal, articulate agenda. Remember Bill Clinton, one of the US’s best Republican presidents?

And the list of the Black Hands’ appointments within Team Obama is sickening, to anyone with an understanding of matters Black, and I aint taking Afro..

We have been conned, once again. But you can’t con all of the people, all of the time, and so my Kuna tribeswoman, made some appropriate changes to my 2008 electioneering, Obama T shirt. What once had a picture of a soulful Obama, with ‘HOPE’ emblazoned across it, now reads, ‘DONT JUST HOPE’.

All you liberal greenies out there, don’t just sit in front of your 42 inch screens, soothed by a new president who sure, now knows know the difference between Australian and Austria, but  Obama, my little darlings, has done some deals with the devil, and we, the world will pay.

For example. Grand scam number one goes like this.

There is an ‘international banking crisis’. The sky is about to fall. But what really happened, was that shitty little Iluminati pervert, Greenspan, set up the game , so every bank in the world could pump credit down the throats of the world, fattening us up like ducks headed for duck pate. No one noticed, that security for the loans, was in fact, vapour, devised by some, too-smart-by-halves, Harvard graduate. The money they pumped out, um, it really did not exist.

So bailout the banks is the solution. Now that makes a lot of sense, atop a few government spending sprees.

All of a sudden, we woke up to the fact that a shitty workers cottage in the city, is infact,  still just a shitty workers cottage, and maybe it’s not worth the $3million it cost. So now it’s worth a mill and falling. And there are no more fat incomes. And we are broke. So what does Team Obama do…its blows what is left in the coffers, on handouts to Gordon Gecko, and with a trill or two more Chinese credit, blows it on useless spending. Now there’s logic. Now we are well and truly fucked. The money’s all gone, the debt is bigger than ever, and pensioners have a new flat screen. What economic genius.

But team Obama has a darker plot, being directed by the luminaries such as the dear sweet Rothchilds.

Charming those Rothchilds, funding death on unseen levels, with family members in Berlin, Paris and London, funding all sides in both WW1 and 2, till about 100 million of us had been slaughtered.

But today, the Rothchilds have an even more clever plan. Why do you need a son in each of London, Paris and Berlin, when with a centralized world banking system, you can control government spending  through one organisation. As the Rothchild’s matriarch once quipped, who needs to control a country’s government, when you can control its money instead. And to any of you naive types, the Federal Reserve is neither owned or controlled by the America people.

So how would you go about building one world banking system? I reckon, the best way to get action, is to  create a big problem, and then come up with a U beaut solution. Greenspan did his part, creating the problem. It’s now over to Team Obama, to solve the crisis, and the way to do it, is to completely remake the world financial system in the mould of its makers, the Rothchild’s.

If you think we are being fucked over now, wait until the next big whamo, when Brzezinski’s little ‘Project for the New America’ kicks in when even more shit hits the fan.

As one commentator put it, America is being used to destroy America. Does anyone seriously believe, that fat, overpriced western countries, buried in debt to the Chinese, can come out of this trap, ontop? Mind you, as soon as the Rothchilds get what they want, with Obama and Gordon Brown busy doing their handiwork just this week, forming a world banking control mechanism, the Rothchilds will take their hands momentarily of our throats, but not for long, as the Rothchilds, more than anyone, know what 2012, and consciousness evolution, means. To be kind to the Rothchilds, they are a needed player in the game unfolding, bless them.

Oh, and just about the only thing the Chinese can’t beat us at, is software…and by the way, ever used Window’s Vista? If i had a hammer, I’d reshape this software.

So yes, my Kuna tribeswoman, she stitched well, adding ‘DONT JUST HOPE’ modifications to the Obama T shirt, as maybe we need to do more than just HOPE, maybe we should be shitting ourselves?

But maybe not. From here, in the main plaza in Peru’ Lima, with a hangover recovering expresso under my belt, what will be, will be. As the mystics and sages say, everything is just perfect, just as it is, right here, right now.

Once you get out on the road, away from those flat screens, it soon becomes apparent, that the consciousness, it’s way different to the politics.

The reason I am in Peru, is unusual. Back in the late 1950’s the end came to the world’s main font of  spiritual enlightenment, when the Chinese closed down Tibet, and the Dalai hoofed it outta there.

On the very same day, that Mr Lama made tracks, the lamas of  South America pricked their ears. At both ends.

Tibet has been the seat of all the Vedic teachings that have influenced the world for centuries. At the seat of this influence, was a male energetic vortex, that saw, amongst other things, a rule of the world by men, for thousands of years. But now, baby, it’s the chic’s turn. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius: water, the female element, is about to reshape earth.

But the male vortex of Tibet, it is no more, and from the 50’s ,through all sorts of indigenous ceremonies and insiders efforts, the vortex has slowly, and painfully, moved like the Kundilini, or Serpent of Light, that it is, snaking from one mountain top area, to another.

Thousands now know what has gone down, and thousands, myself included, are here to sniff the air, as the new spiritual hot spot, here on earth, has passed through the Andes, and I plan to track it. And I am not alone. Even here in on the coast of Peru, my “Friend’s” hostel, is packed with travellers in the know.

If you don’t know what is unfolding here on earth, you are running out of time to find out.

But  I admit, I had no idea what was happening in South America, and I still don’t. For example, when I got all washed up in Columbia, I was surprised to find that Peru was right next door to Columbia. That’s how ignorant I am.

So I bought a ticket,that even confused the airline I bought it from. It was $400 to fly to Peru, one way from Columbia. But in the world of internet madness, with the aid of some sly ( and cute) Aussie backpacker, who had been a Mexican tour guide for a few years, I found that if I flew from Cartegena to Bogata, then on to Medillon, then back to Bogota, and then across the mountains to Peru, it would only cost $171. Return. Go figure.

So I bought the ticket, drank at Cafe Havana till before dawn, and headed to Cartegena airport. At the check in, I pointed out to the staff, that they were about to fly me to Medillin, and back, all in the next few hours, and if they had any sense, they could just fly me to Bogata, let me out for a day tour, and them get me to Lima.

How the fuck I could scam their system, to do all of this for $171 instead of $800, had the managers fucked, but hey, I had a valid e-ticket.

So after a few strong Columbia coffees, I found myself wandering the streets of Bogata. From all I had heard, I had expected to find some drug crazed ghetto, in the mountains, but much to my surprise, I found a very sexy , European style city, something like the Basque region, 1980, in pristine, cultured format.

All this sophistication seemed to warrant a visit to Columbia’s National Museum, to visit Incan mummies, and pompous portraits of Spanish fuckwits. I had just the day before, visited the Museum of the Spanish Inquisition in Cartegena, and I had, in consequence, a none too amorous attitude to the Spanish and the Roman Catholics, after a detail inspection of head crushing screws, breast ripping tongs, throat piecing forks, and little pieces of gym equipment designed to give you a little bit more extra stretch, that I get out of my daily yoga practise.

Then it was back on the plane, over the Amazon, and down the coast to Lima. Lima, on first impression, was a shithole. The hangover, and the lack of sleep didn’t help tint the impression, as some crazed taxi driver showed me how medium strips, one ways streets,( the wrong way) and footpaths, were in fact all part of a purposefully built personal  race track, where video replays of terminal car crashes are the expected norm.

To get to the, (then to me unknown), rather flash Miraflores and Baranco, one takes the coast road. The coast road, runs below filthy dirt cliffs, along miles of grey, grubby beachfront, where the city’s garbage is loosely compacted to turn a coastline into a dark seen from Blade Runner.

Fog dimed the scene, so as I  really could not tell, for miles, if I  was looking out over a cloudy industrial valley, or in fact,  the ocean.

Turning up a pass through the cliffs, at the top of the cliffs, appeared a whole new scene, of manicured high rise suburbs, and some very fun and funky scenes.

It was not till morning, and with it some new found sunshine, as I paced out, in pursuit of a cliff top yoga spot, that I realised I was indeed in a flash part of town.

Back at the Friends’ hostel, in wandered the delightful Vita, with whom I spent the day, wandering and lunching in the glamous surrounds, complete with DYI , backpacker dinner partay, and drinks till late, at salsa central, Baranco, in the company of Chilean surf champs, US sailing captains, and French travel hounds. As you do.

And tomorrow, I get high. Very high, and a lot cooler: in Cuzco. Them there spiritual mountains, they are a beckoning.

Peru has taken me by such surprise, that I really have not had a chance to catch my breath…literally. Above 3000metres, oxygen is a little light on. One minute I am meant to be sailing the Caribbean, next, I’m in the Andes. From helm, to handlebars. What the?
Right here, right now, I am lying behind the thick mud brick walls of a hostal deep inside an Andean valley. This afternoon, I fell asleep on the steps of a mountain church on the sun warmed steps waiting for passing showers to do their thing in the valley below.  Whilst Cusco crawls with tourists, just a few hours south, I am the only non-Andean in the valley, a valley full of Inca remains and Peruvian farmers.  200cc of semi agricultural motorbike, at 20 bucks per day is my lone companion. The Dell had to be left as security for the hired Ag  bike, as I need my passport for a fling into Bolivia…or whatever country is next, so I am typing away on my email phone….being I am a two finger typist anyway. God knows why the caps lock KEeps engaging.

Outside is San Pedro village… a valley peppered with other smaller villages. An soft afternoon tour by my inconspicuous, local looking mota, revealed back valley beauty I can’t aptly verbalise, given some personal handicaps of the digestive and low oxygen nature, and combined, if I were a lighter, I would need a dozen flint strikes to spark.
Gratefully my new Sony camera was brought back from extinction by some micro fiddling Peruvian, besieged in Cusco by others of a similar digital demise, so maybe my photos can make up for my lack of spark.  But sadly, in an all Christian crowd, watching the body of Christ, (the fibreglass one), ( I am the Way, the Truth, and the Mould), being lugged into the biggest basilica on Easter,  and at the trips end, one of these devotees took it upon himself, to pick a pocket or two, picking my repaired Sony, ripping of with it, 400 of the most amazing landscape photos I have ever taken, breaking my heart, and infuriating me, but making me realise, photos are a thing of the past, not the now, which I add, barley helped relax my annoyance, let alone allow you, my reader, to see, to some degree at least, what I saw of the Andes by bike. A few Machu Pichu shots taken on my mobile phone remain trapped in the phone, as I hunt electrical shops for the elusive connector. I hate that.
Cusco was the Andean base camp of choice for Incas, Spanish, and now the world’s North Face wearing tourists….and it is indeed a gorgeous antique of the urban kind…in around the old city, if nothing else.  The cobbled streets are so tight that you have to exhale and hug the walls when the go-cart sized taxis squeeze past. It is, to the technically minded, the naval of the world. Pachacutec in all his Incan glory, using raid and rip-off politics mixed with imperial benevolence, demolished and rebuilt Cusco, using an interlocking masonry technique that indeed, got the wind up the horses, in Chariots of the Gods.  With the chutzpah of Van Daniken, and with my 5 year qualification of as Bachelor of Building, (more bachelor than builder) I can assert,  with certainty, that either anti-gravitational materials handling techniques were used to lift 20 tonne polyhedron stones, hewn on up to 30 faces, which all aligned together so closely, that a pin couldn’t be set in the gaps, or alternatively,  I assert, that the shithead Pachacutec enslaved whole families to spend their entire lives shaping up maybe one or two of the huge stones, amongst the millions laid…either way, something cruel or weird built Cusco’s foundations. These interlocking, polyhedrons that that are the only remaining earthquake proof foundation structures in Cusco, make the Spanish stonework, built atop the Incan bases, look positively rough arse. As for the concrete and mud brick adds-ons’ of the recent tourist industry, well hey, the next earthquake, due soon, should make short shift of what isn’t 700 years old, and Incan interlocking.

Out here in the real Peru, rooms come at 4 bucks per night, with no heating, and cold, and frost bite inducing showers. But the thick mud brick walls do wonders by way of insulating protection. Little food for a few days, to combat some new Peruvian gut bug, sees me a little prone to the shivers, but nothing that 20 blankets can’t remedy…and fuc, I thought I was going be tanning in the Caribbean, until we got all washed up in Colombia.
Mud is all the go here. Everyone makes their house out of it. The river runs red with it, feeding the Amazon a good dose of mud, daily . The patina of everyone’s skin and clothes is mildly mud caked, and hey, with no hot showers, I’m with the local’s too…especially travelling by Ag bike.

Dogs do designer dirt. Mules are in on it…as are hairy cows, old women and lamas. Hey, when in Rome, get with the mud, man.

I had to go one further recently, with both ice and mud…and lost.

It all started well.  Then it got all too hard.
There is a thin valley with rapids and a lone rail track connecting Cusco, the navel, with Machu Pichu, the something or other chakra.

Regrettably, in this tight valley, there was no room left for a road…so the road to Machu Pichu is…as they say…over the top. Armed with the then latest Honda 250cc dirt bike, the sweet little mota fared well in the oh so scenic climb out of Cusco, and after the first day’s ride into Ollytaytambo, I was left so exhilarated, that I could have easily spend the rest of my life touring the world by mota bike.

Then, the next day, things got seriously Matterhorn.
Talk about up. I have never suffered vertigo but when bike riding morphed with base jumping, I got edgy….where the edge was just a second’s front wheel slip on an unseen rock fall, awaiting you around every third hairpin. And there were more hairpins than my mum’s dresser drawer. Needless to say, the scenery made the Alps look more lame, than a lama.

‘Gasp’…that’s probably the best world for it.
The endless climb through treeless tundra was punctuated by the odd, frozen stone hut. From the odd hut, wandered the odd Andean farmer, often a woman, bustled around the hips with more cloth than the Savoys opening curtains, and from the waist up, the postcard colour collage in reds and aqua’s that define Peruvian fashion, alpine style. Those San Blas Kuna’s…they have colour competitors.
It seemed, oddly, that I had this scary, but magnificent mountain road, all to myself….and sadly, unbeknownst to me…I more or less did have the road to myself. And why? Well, somewhere between K2 and Everest, a semi frozen local on a small bike coming towards me,  kindly waved me down… and in a mix of pigeon Spanish and roadside charades…it became apparent that the reason why the road was vacant, was because ahead, it was blocked by a landslide deep enough to bury 20 trucks. But no one had told me…albeit thinking back….those weird flapping waves by the odd passing ute must have had more meaning, than met my eye.  By this stage, the wind chill, the fog and the snow had got the better of my onion like clothing. I thought I was ready, with a clothing set for all seasons, including a yachty jacket, a bike jacket, a wet suit jacket, and a range of North Face under layers. I froze. This made me nervous, knowing I was planning 4 months on a bike in Europe….eek. But then this was a lot higher than Europe.
So it was to the frozen mercy of a small stone hut I fled. Stone huts without mortar, and with no trees for an open fire, are hardly comfortable and warm . But who am I to complain, when greeted by sandal wearing local, of the old woman kind, who despite being toothless, god awful ugly, and seemingly blind… was having a hoot of a day. The clay stove blackening the already windowless hut was good enough to sit on as well s cook on…my arse being that cold. Who needs a fridge in these houses, as all sorts of skinned, dead animals, hanging from the rafters, attested.
Life restoring coca tea, 4 potatoes and some bone du jour, mit rancid meat, made lunch. politely  skipped the rancid meat, but the bugs got me anyway, a few days later. If it’s meat here, it’s likely disgusting lama, making my semi veg diet look like a survival technique.

If you could only see how freezing it is making your way to the banos here outside my room, you would understand more of the downside to upside-down intestines…. there is a small internal courtyard below in mud brick and barnyard format, where grandad’s beanie clad skull watches on with amusement, as I plod to the bog, hitting my head on each pygmy sized door head enroute.

There was, I noticed, some taped and tangled wiring heading to an electrocuting shower head, and for a buck, I was under it. The towel they gave me made me dirtier than when I got under, but hey, I have my western habits, including shaving in the shower. Forget shampoo…it was too cold for that addition. In my room, a rabid application of wax and coconut oil greased the skin parts exposed to the motorcycle adventures, and presto, it’s time for breakfast. I add, no end of fatty skin protection could stop my face aging 5 years in 2 weeks of Andean bike riding. Girls, beware.

Buying my own porridge, the daft cook turned the packet a  soup of the consistency of skim milk.  All the Peruvian cooks  did this to my porridge, despite my protestations.  But I wasn’t going to be conned into believing that a ‘continental breakfast’ (a roll and coffee) had anything more than 10 minutes of sustenance in it,besides, the ‘continental” is the breakfast of the addicted only, whether it be addiction to cigarettes, caffeine or booze: the reason why people do ‘continental’, is simply because their addictions have them so fucked by morning, that that is all they can stomach.

However, as the only gringo in a non English speaking village, there was little point complaining.
You would have heard of Machu Pichu, and regrettably, so has every other tourist on earth. Yes. Machu Pichu is a must see, and accordingly, the Peruvians  $milk it for every cent they can get out of us…charging $75 for the $5 train ride in, and bleeding you at every point along the way, until I could not bear to think about it. Then, at around 10 am, to salt the wounds, when busloads of neo crippled, luxury tourists arrive, it is indeed a sad sight of overfed, nearly dead, rubber necks, making sacrilegious, the sacred site.
But the beauty and majesty of the holy citadel is unsurpassed, here on earth.
Machu Pichu is bedecked with a sophistication and cosmic understanding that insults the trite interpretation, that the current conspiracy of lies manifest, spurned from what is accepted of modern archaeological doctrine. No one noticed that it was the Iluminati controlled Fabien Society that made all the scholarship grants and subsequent Ivy league professorial appointments of pre war western society,  only promoting views that simplified pyramids to mere tombs, and Incas to mere fancy stone masons.

Accordingly, Machu Pichu’s historical interpretation is to me, an infuriating insult. My sly chats with Incan guides on the side, concurred with my more multidimensional and awestruck view of the temples and their construction and their purpose, yet just as the evil Spanish Inquisitors  burnt and buried the Incan truth in their day, don’t be deluded into thinking it’s any better today, and if you inquire, you will find it is the same family bloodlines of the Spanish rulers of 1550, that are the Black Hand controllers of today’s society, dishing up lies about the real truths of earlier civilisations, as they bleed us into our CNN stupor. But their days are numbered, and they know it, as there is just too much weird and unanswered information arising, that debunks the absurdist simplifications of today’s archaeological bullshit.

Yes, some say, ladies and gentlemen, that there is a mother earth consciousness, and with here, there is a father sun, and if you think climate changes is all about 4 atoms per 10,000 of CO2, we are all in for some big surprises. But we still deem Incan understanding of these planetary consciousness matters, as pagan delusion?
I’ve just abandoned the porridge soup and daringly, from a dysfunctional, hose style digestive process, and  ordered two fried eggs.
So back to Machu Pichu. It’s not all about grotesque and ignorant tourism. It’s a very special spot, also about energy and reverence. I add, it must have been one very funky, switched on spot to live. I’m kinda jealous. Some interpretations say it was heavily weighed with princesses and virgins, increasing my lower chakra envy. And in terms of a setting…the views are mind blowing.

A few passing mountain showers, and soon the touristica rabble is dispersed, and what remains are a handful of those in the know, tucked into coves and temples in quiet meditation, soaking up what Machu Pichu is all about.
Having departed Ollytaytambo, at 4 am for the climb, and leaving the mountain site late, I had all the time in the world to sit quietly in the coves, where once, offerings were made to the gods above, the gods here on earth, and the gods below… and in some vain sort of consciousness offering…I offered me, to a world of peace and compassion, sorta’ thing.  Not that I am a pure white lama, sorta’ offering, I come with some blemishes.

It sounds corny, but it was deeply peaceful thing, and I was not alone in my mountain meditations. Not everyone is just looking for a photo opportunity, some want a shot at redemption, and many now know what is unfolding in the acceleration of consciousness, and can see deeper than CNN, world recession, and a wander round some old rocks.

The eggs looked shitful and tasted fab.  But I indeed can’t wait for Asia, as most of the Americans; both North and South, are culinary challenged. You don’t come here for the food, that’s for sure.

A day of stillness up at Machu Pichu had a rude, evening awakening, when I was told that the departing train left from up the mountain, and not from where it had arrived, lower down the hill in Aguas Calientes, where I was waiting at 7pm, for a train departing at 7pm. The mad dash through the markets and train station, with sprinting train conductors in the lead, ended in a wild jump onto a moving train, followed by 20 minutes of heavy breathing in the fogged up car back to Ollytaytambo. Never rush anything at 3000m.

In the quaint English garden of my Ollytaytambo hostal, was the motorbike of a tall, lanky, ‘Sir Hillary’ looking, Englishman, named Malcolm. Malcolm was on a short jaunt from Argentina to Alaska, after spending the past 26 years sailing around the world, 5 of which he spent working as an architect of some distinction, being the only architect to address the Australian floor of Parliament, with his idea, for example. With 8 grandchildren, at age 70, it was a sight to behold when Malcolm declared he was about to make a crowd beating B line, climbing the near vertical Machu Pichu lookout, leaving 20-somethings in his wake. Go Malcolm. At 53, there is still hope for me yet. I too could spend 27 years travelling the world, on a work-to-travel ratio of 1year 5. I add, discipline, hardiness and daring, are all needed fully experience the world, and by 50, most of us  Westerners have succumb to the soul destroying need for those little comforts and securities, as fear takes over from fun. So spending a few days with Malcolm, absorbing his rare attitude was indeed a treat. Our discussions varied from anchors, to bike touring stoves, to deeper issues of consciousness vs. intelligence. Bloody marvellous. We both headed off into the mountains, on our pack-kitted bikes, Malcolm’s small Honda looking the picture of minimalist excellence. Malcolm tells me he will likely use the money from the sale of his yacht, to buy a river barge in Europe, and maybe write a book, as his daily vista changes  more slowly by barge. I love him. Never settle down in front of a TV, its terminal.

But adventure travel has its price tag.

Like today.

Oh fuck. What a day.
From the retrospective fireside comfort of a small restaurant alongside Lake Titicaca……all I can say, is, thankyou God. Between here and Cusco, remain a few thousand stranded travellers, caught high on the alpine tundra….pinned down by blockades from what could only be called a massive civil insurrection….something I recall, I am neither insured for, or ready for, but hey, shit happens, and today, it happened to me.

A few years back, a marxist mob called Shining Path, led by a character with all the tact of Charles Manson, would rip locals off the bus, in this very area, (along with a few of us tourists), and then, would simply shoot them in the gutter. The area I had ridden into, had a nasty recent history, shall we say.
Lonely Planet rarely calls anywhere bleak. There is sunny side to everywhere. But bleak could amply describe the lives of the windowless enshrined Andean villagers, living so high that the only thing that will  grow there, are fucking lamas.
I don’t know what it is about summit passes, but of the three I have attempted so far, all have been disasters. Today’s was a mere four and an half kilometres high. No big deal if you don’t breath oxygen. But both bikes and humans burn O2 to make bacon. So at four kilometres high, 200 cc of Suzuki Ag bike was, shall we say, sub optimal, when it came to performance. But unlike the previous summit climbs, in Panama, and enroute to Machu Pichu, this time, I actually made it to the summit in one, unfrozen piece, and theoretically, it was all downhill from there.

My script writer had another plan.

Allow me a mo’ to slurp some of this cream of asparagus comfort food. The coca leaf and cola pre-dinner drinks did wonders.
So back to the snowy summit. Lamas…. I am no fan of lamas…they spit at you, and according to a certain Doctor Dolittle, can be two headed. In other words never trust a lama.
So on approaching a herd of the stupid fucas, it seemed appropriate to slow a tad.
But lamas will be lamas, and sure enough, one lama made the fateful Jonestown call, and made speed, not away from me, but at me. Result….a lama head-on…at about 50k/h. Bam. Thank the gods that I had asked the bike hirer to fit hand guards, otherwise I would be typing this rant with my toes, as lamas, at speed, hurt. I might add, I hope the fucking lama has a headache that lasts a month.  You don’t even get a bleat out of lama, they are not only stupid, they’re mute.

The bike was shaken, but not stirred, unlike me. Aside of a sacrificial, and trashed hand guard.

Over the next few days, I gave into my ‘never look like an idiot tourist’ rule, and bought a few alpaca scarves and jumpers (Europe is soon) in the vain and spiteful hope, that they sheared the stupid lamas of my wool, on the eve of winter.
Nonetheless, the ugly day had hardly begun.
The  tundra plains put the dirt into dirt poverty, and I was about to meet the civil discontent face to face….or more like, 500 faces glaring at my face.

I simply could not believe it, when once again, I had an odd feeling I was alone on the alpine highway, when, despairingly, in the distance, I could see yet another half mile line up of trucks.
Surely not another landslide?

Nope…this time it was a blockade.

Blockade?…I know blockades, I thought, as I weaved my way through the trucks and buses, to the head of the problem.
Having once kept 500 of my angry workers at bay, 30 years ago, surely another, angry, 500 head crowd could be cajoled into letting one happy smiley bikey through.  When one cannot speak much Spanish beyond numbers and greetings, there is a form of diplomacy that I would describe as the Jerry Lewis style, that is a sure fire technique. Pull faces, keep smiling, and throw in lots of, ‘grassy arses’, and ‘buenos dias’ and hey presto, the magic word…’passe’ will eventuate…and after some Evil Knievil bike jumps….I am through the  insurrection blockade.  Chuffed by surviving the lama hit, and being the only guy in 500 to make it through the blockade, it seemed an oral ovation, in helmet, of ‘Happy days are here again’, was appropriate. But shit happens, repetitively.
Like some kind of Irish joke, there was two of them, blockades that is.
So again…off with the helmet, and on with the Jerry Lewis facial diplomacy. And again, the ignorant laughing gringo is on his way. But, my   ‘way’, the road itself, soon turned ugly. It seemed word of discontent had infected the whole frozen Altiplano, and blockades soon became as frequent as yesterday’s farts, and for mile after mile, rocks were strewn across the road, with the odd lamppost and fire thrown in for good measure. Villages were flanked with thousands of disgruntled and pissed-off Peruvians….around a road where the only living traffic, was me. So it wasn’t long before eventually, some grumpy old Shining Path left over gave me the, no way mate, to my passage. So sitting there on my bike, surrounded by hundreds of angry faces, all looking like they wanted to torch my moto, it was time to upgrade my diplomacy. The looks of pain on the lined and suffering Andean faces, glaring and crowding around me, is a look of I will never forget. It made the painting of the potato eaters, look live a Nivea ad.

Empathy. That’s it, I figured as I found a spot to sit surrounded by as a many protestors as possible. Besides, I, like the locals, shared a common view about government. The one where the rich get richer, and the poor get the picture. This, it seemed would the technique de jour.
So after a dozen broken glass and boulder heaped blockages, manned by thousands of  rock-sling wielding locals, I was building confidence. I mean, who but some fool genius could talk his way through blockade after blockade other than Jerry Lewis on an Ag bike, with empathy? Hundreds in fact thousands remained trapped in their buses, trucks and taxis, impaled by protest, as I slithered through smiling.

After about 10 protracted blockade negotiations, I ran into a cyclist, kit in toe, peddling to America, and enquiring from whence he had peddled, as if I should have known, he said Ireland.  He was infact peddling around the world. As you do. And I thought I was mad. Recommending the Jerry Lewis, keep smiling style, we parted company on a bleak alpine plain, no one insight but fucking lamas. I bet he is stuck now, in some shithole, miles from sea level. He wasn’t, as his blog later attested.
The last blockade was the best. This one was armed to the nines with thousands of protestors….on one side, hundreds of stranded trucks, on the other, hillsides full of ex Shining Path protestors, their kids, and their grandparents. Everyone had the shits.

This one was gunna be the acid diplomatic test.
How, I pondered, could Jerry Lewis get through this one? It was a time for an adjustment in tactics, once again. It was time for some wannabee Che Guevara. Maybe some sorta, ‘Motor Cycle Diaries’, thing?.  I had two words in Spanish that I could recount as maybe workable…‘Viva! y Bueno!‘ It was a kinda’ all or nothing call. This blockade comprised about 4 rock and soil embankments over 150m laced with broken bottles, fires and large crowds.

So hand waving in the sky, helmet off, each blockade, I greeted with a hearty ‘bueno’, and the odd ‘viva!’ thrown in, on approach, and sure enough, not single grumpy officiado had the guts to block my passage, as much to my amused amazement, thousands of roadside protestors  cheered in support of my mindless rally cry. I of course had no idea what was the day’s, ‘cause celeb, but hey, apparently what I did had pleased the crowd. I mounted each rock pile victoriously. It was as much to my amazement, as the hundred of truckies gobsmacked at the other side of the last blockade, that I rode on through.

Tonight, the Peruvian news is blazon with the civil insurrection story, from Shining Path central, as thousands stay trapped in their cars, and as far as I can figure, having watched others fail, I am the lone freak who made it through. So fireside here in Puno, the red wine and coca drinks have a better than usual warming feel.

Winding though Puno streets, with illegible Lonely Planet strapped to the handle bars, today I choose the special treat hotel, where my bike currently adorns the foyer, and where, for an exorbitant 15 bucks…I enjoyed a 3O minute hot shower…a luxury I sure as hell thought was a bridge to far, out there in the dirt, of the dirt poor today

To date, I still have no details as to what was up the insurrection rectum.
But back maybe I plead more ignorance than is really plausible, as blind Freddy could see, that the poverty of the high Antiplano is a weeping injustice when compared to say Miraflores, in Lima, where lifestyle is more or less European, and apparently, where the principles of a caring and sharing governance pass like a bad fart in a court proceeding. It stinks, but no one dares talk about it.

But not all is turmoil and drama in the Andes.
Pulling out of the port city of Puno, if lakes have ports, I headed out along the frigid shores of the world’s highest lake.  Titicaca was to the Incas, the Sacred Lake. To the Uros tribe, Titicaca is just about all there is in life. Not even with a dry bit of turf to call home, the Uros found home, afloat on beds of reeds, strapped, bundled and re-laid regularly, such that, as long as the Uros could cut reeds, they had a home….and not just a paddock, but a hut, a roof and a boat, all made of reeds, and as if that was not enough, they eat the shit too. Who needs to be a ginger bread man, living in a ginger bread house, when the Uros can up the ante by throwing in a boat made of reeds too. A ginger bread boat would last as long as a biscuit in tea, but in the life that is ever renewed on Uros, a reed boat, that will take you a month to make, will last a year.  The original disposable society.

Like the Lilliputian  sized Kunas of San Blas, the wee Uros….ah….er…they were wee too, and so made to water, to avoid their enemies, as hey, in the history of Peru, it was nothing to find your head impaled on a spear, at the entrance to the town you were the mayor of yesterday ….along with the heads of your kids and neighbours.
But today, they don’t put the Uros head on a spear, they put an admission ticket on it, and today, the Uros have sold out to the Disneyland reed ride tour.  Indeed, the place is so badly overrun in a culture of tourist trinket, that in many ways, the place has sunk already.

So off to the Bolivian side of the lake, 200cc and me, we head.
I always thought those pathetic, mid life crisis, accountants on Harley Davidson’s, were too much to bear, when they wrapped scarfs around their heads, but hey, at 3600m high, through icy, lake chilled winds, I gave in, wrapping my head in my Kuna Yala scarf, and putting my helmet over the odd apparition. A few days later, I upgraded the scarf choice to Alpaca.

The border of Peru and Bolivia is small, bleak, bus stop, on the edge of the shared Lake Titicaca.  As for me, my police and immigration duties were through in a flash, as the lone border crossee, but the final government officials,  whose role i couldn’t figure, would not issue an entry permit to the Suzuki. Maybe a Suzuki is the modern day drug mule? Mine certainly performed like a mule on drugs.
So having found and hired a manger in which I could leave the mangy bike….I made for Bolivia by foot. It’s in places like Bolivia, that the type of tourist you meet, have been well and truly culled of those seeking basic Hilton comforts, something I found quite comforting, being that my daily fare included Lama head-ons, and not air-conditioned daiquiris. Here at last where some old school travellers.
It was only 20 cents and 15 minutes later, that I was in the dusty lakeside town of Copacabana, where dozens of idle fibreglass swans sat waiting for a fiesta of tourists to peddle their paddles. 5 bucks here, and you have room with a view of the lake, with a shower that will either electrocute you, or defrost you, often both.
Music and passion are always the passion, at the Copacabana…but just not this one. This ain’t Cuba.

So after an afternoon bidding on every old BMW bike on UK Ebay, I hit the sack, and in the morning, made for the wharf. To hell with places like Mecca…these days, spiritual tourism  all about the new, real deal hot spots. Isla del Sol is where is all began for the Incas, as their story goes. Of course despite the fact that Lake Titicaca remains one of the world’s hottest UFO spots, as with much of Shirley McLean’s Peru, banal materialists know better, if you believe CNN, and to think that Inca history is full  space ships, beings and leaders coming out of the lake and its heavens, we can dismiss the Inca stories as amusing mythology, even if we can’t explain the most simple engineering feats of the Incas, to this day. Any modern masons can easily demonstrate how to cut a curved, 30 sided, two tonne slab of basalt, and fit it together so finely that you would fold your micrometer finding a gap…. yeah, right. Or shift 20 tonne stones from mountain top to mountain top without a trail.
As I write, we are doodling across lake Titicaca at 4 knots, in some wonky boat copied in design from some 1960s Montecarlo brochure. I am just returning from Isla del sol, after 3 of the most calm and cosmic days of my journey. Inti the father sun god was a big feature of Incan belief systems.   As a passing resident of the island of the sun, it occurred to me that as we protestants are want to recite, something like, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name’….and here, ‘His’ name is Inti, and he is so hallowed, that you need sunblock.

Sacred sites take all manner of forms, and in Australia, for example a sacred site can simply just be a rock, or a waterfall. On Isla del Sol, it’s a few stones circles, a rock face oddly profiling a deity, and the remains of the stone hut attendees.
According to the Incan mythology, where I am currently buried in research, the creator god of all, arranged an energetic upgrade that seeded the Incas boom, using 3 players, one a star, Our Father Sun, (which art in heaven), along with Pacha Mama, mother earth, or Gaia, and last but not least, that sexy lover, the one than runs babes off their 28 day feet, the fertilizing moon. Between the 3 of them, after the catraphobic residue of the last fall, or shall we call it flood, a whole new stage was set for the Incas to boom based on basics, like sun to energise the corn and maize, earth to be the seed’s womb, and the moon to give cycle to growth.
Of course we CNN mob, dismiss planetary influences as astrological nonsense, yet are you telling me, if you are female, that your lunar menstruation alignment is caused by gravity? One day people will learn that climate change ain’t all about 4 particles in 10,000.

So from this sacred lake, via Isla del Sol, came the seeding of one of the most advanced nations known to history.

Those liars who are the Ivy league archaeology professors, try to tell us that ancient Samaria was the birth place of civilisation, 5000 years ago. It’s a bit embarrassing for their decaying lies, to recently find remains of more advanced cities under Lake Titicaca, in dive expeditions barely a few years old, where there remains outdate Samaria by a thousand years.  If the truth be known about Samaria, I am left wondering if Samaria is just an Illuminati, or Aryan poster promo, as Samaria is simply the Sum of the Aryans, where, if you a good bible believer, aliens called Anunuki came and fucked our maidens and bread up a slave race, tooling with our multidimensional DNA antenna, turning it off, such that we now call it junk DNA. Sorry, the DNA bit wasn’t from the bible…just the bit about aliens fucking our maidens to make a slave race. Hey, never question the ‘word of god’.

But I am also a weird quantum scientist of the fringe type.  So here we go again>>>
Energy, all that there is, comes in more shapes and sizes than meets the eye. Or the ear. Or the sense of touch. Infact, of all the energy forms we know of, we humans can sense a small fraction of one percent of what there is. Accordingly with quarks zipping in and out of this dimension without E, I don’t  Einstein’s permission, I think it is reasonable to suggest, that there are some types of energy that we (Tesla aside), have not fathomed yet.

That being the case, if an energetic occurrence occurs thousands of years ago, on Isla del Sol,  that helped boost and build  mighty Inca nation, who am I to dismiss Incan mythology as impossible madness.
So soak it up, was the order of the day, and whilst some folks can meditate their way down to quiet, I find sleep is fine too. Accordingly on Isla del Sol, I found some comfy spots to quietly nap in the sun, smack bang on the sacred site rock circles and fields, and just happily soaked it all in. I entered with gut disease, back aches and a looming cold, and I exited well… And all I did, was be there.

It was surprisingly quiet yesterday, I could feel a relaxing vibe in an already totally chilled out Bolivian highland (island) community. It was Sun Day of the Isla Del Sol. So a long chatty breakfast with fellow cosmic tripper Emanuel from France was followed by an equally long and chilled lunch before wandering off into the agricultural wonderland, that became yet another spot to snooze, watching soccer.
Given that the new energetic vortex that moved from Tibet to the Andes also shifted the vortex spin from male to female, it is no wonder Isla del Sol is one of the most gentle places I have ever been, and in 5 months on the road, I hereby add this tiny community to my favourite spot list, along with the San Blas islands.

Old American Indian hippy writers like Drunvalo, have recently published an array of accounts of the cosmic earth work done in ceremonies at the Isla del Sol vortex, chipping away at aligning the world’s energetic Unity Consciousness Grid, in the same way as Reiki or Chinese doctors shift your chi.
I guess you might call Titicaca one of the planets main charka points, and for those of you who don’t know what a chakra point is….all I can say, maybe you are fast running out of time to understand how we really work.
CNN….and N and N, aint where it’s at.
So heading back to shore at 4 knots, in a boat full of trekking boots, suntanned faces and back packs, I am quite content having simply been on Isla del Sol.  Back breaking mile after mile of terraced gardens wrap around the island like contour detours. There is not a farm motor or noise in sight…..ah.. agronomist supreme, Bill Mollison would fit and froth, as here is one big organic cycle, where humans lug fodder they cut by hand, then sling it on their backs, as unlike the most primitive farmers of old Asia, a bullock cart is an impossibility in this terrain, so donkeys and spines get a work out. Pigs wander the main street, mischievously nicking the backpackers buns when they aint looking, and these pigs don’t give up a bun without a chase… not that I’d re eat a pig mouthed bun. No shit goes to waste, and the rock pens of sheep, donkeys and cows all turn famer lugged fodder, into farmer lugged manure. The manure thrown on the rose beds, makes blooms that would make the Royal Kew Gardener, green. I was left wandering if plants super grow on Isla del Sol like Glastonbury? I will go to Glastonbury just to figure out how to spell it right soon.
The thin air throws the high pitches sounds at you with exacting clarity, whilst the deeper tones disappear, creating an audio wonder world, with no sound floor, and each chirp of the finch is heard forever. Even if freezing, the sun god delivers bikini grade sun sitting for those quick enough to get in and out of 6 layers of clothing. Not a drop of sweat is made, so for example, aside of the fact that what few clothes I have are strapped to my bike in Peru, I haven’t changed single item of clothing for 5 days. I have not got any other clothes to change into.. I might yield to the stupid woollen sock-on-head look, for under-helmet wear, but apart from that, who cares… besides, the showers are two cold to shower under, so all told, all is well, as no spare clothes, keeps out the light in light weight travel.
I was a bit nervous about the logistics of finding the farmer with me mota, so after the crawl across the lake, the walk to the border, I was none too pleased to see, when I got to the border, yet more blockades, and not the blockade of the police or immigration style, but of the local insurrection type.

The fucka’s were following me.
After checking out of Bolivia and hoofing it into Peru, I slipped my passport onto the counter and asked to enter Peru. The official looked over the top of his reading glasses, and dryly asked me, ‘Are you SURE you want to enter Peru?’

Fuck it, I thought, stamp me in, albeit I might be back real soon, I replied. After talking my way through countless blockades a few days back, I was up for it. So wheeling my bike out of the lama shit, sheep shed, along with countless grassy arses to the farmer’s wife, the first thing I dug out from my watertight knapsack, was a dictionary. If there where blockades ahead, I had a new idea beyond limp impersonations of Jerry Lewis and Che Guevara, and the old favourite was pretending to be the press, and, ‘la prensa’ was the first word I found and memorised.

But today, the first, second and third blockades were a walkover, compared to the Antiplano riots.
I had been told that tomorrow they were going to blockade Puno for a few days, and the only way to Arequipa was via Puno, and so surviving the Bolivian border blockades, I made my way to Puno with the throttle held, open full stick, all day, not stopping for anything other than gasoline in, and urine out, till I was buried in the Peruvian wild west town of Julica, telling rick saw riders to fuck off as I wove through one way traffic (going the wrong way), in a determined fit of fervour to get the hell out of the Puno area, manyana’s blockade zone. This I had to do before night fall, recalling as you may, my bike’s lack of lights, and lama magnet tendencies. Fucking lamas. So Arequipa was out of the question, but I did make it to a town called St Lucia. There is not a single tree within miles of St whatever Lucia….and this is the raw and real Peru, that the trekkers and bus bound backpackers don’t get to see. It ain’t much to look at.  By comparison, at least the dark satanic mills have some architectural articulation. It’s a grim town.

I quickly found the Peruvian equivalent, of the truckies trailer trash hotel, and my room, comprising a couple of dozen mud bricks and a door set at 5 foot six, is my cosy home. To get the light working, I had to strip a live 110V cable, with the aid of a knife borrowed from the blackened kitchen, and peeling back the plastic insulation, with a twist, I have a  working light bulb, and classical music on the Ipod speakers…and also, after 20 minutes, just enough charge in this email phone to diarise today’s madness. I tried the local internet hall, but when Yahoo’s sign in page still hadn’t shown up on the screen after 20 minutes, I went and bought lemons and dinner for a buck, to savour in my 4 buck, mud brick hole. God is great.  I kinda like it real. But real, has its price…like varieties of belly bugs that won’t go away, like George Bush’s second term.

When it comes to climbing mountain ranges in Peru, never think you are near the summit, simply because you can see nothing over the last ridge…because in Peru, mountains are made of steroids, and going up means going up, up some more, and when you are 4 kilometres high, you still have another K to go….up that is. The gods who made southern Peru must have been on a bender. The ride into Arequipa defies normal geographical and geological, planetary parameters. First, start climbing though glacial tundra valleys so vast, so expansive, and so breath taking, you need an iron lung. Hey…how about a few snow capped, 6000 meter volcanoes for half time.
If that ain’t enough, flick a geographical switch, and you are in a desert of cacti, dropping into gorges, so gorgeous, they steal the grand out of Grand Canyon.

The outskirts of Arequipa look like Bagdad after a bit of cluster bombing. It’s a city in an alpine desert, but with its snow melts being the highest source of the Amazon, it has lots of water flowing through the groins. Arequipa gets down. Deep down in the valleys, at only a mere couple on K above sea level…positively low by comparison from whence I came. Volcanoes that throw boulders 100k, and earthquakes as regular as London buses, means the geology of the area is impermanent. To thieving Spanish colonialists and empire building Catholics, such geological impermanence has its upside. For example, the white volcanic rock could almost be cut with chainsaw, so having robbed and enslaved the locals, they got them to work carving floral laced basilicas and monasteries that rival Madrid’s best. The result is a city of great architectural splendour, built on the blood of others, where the Mestisto aristocracy led cultured, European life styles, while all around  them was poverty. Arequipa has been the breeding ground for all Peru’s heartless right wing leaders, for some time.
They have a famous nunnery in Arequipa which was only exposed in the 1970s, for what it truly was: basically, it was a luxury Hilton Hotel for rich kid girls, where each poor suffering nun had 8 black servants.  Such devotion…and even today, entry to the social disgrace is a rip-off. I refused to enter. I did however visit the beautiful inner courtyard home, of the  Spanish appointed mayors. It was a beautiful house, but not a beautiful home. Dad was apparently a dickhead, ripping off what he could, as he ruled the locals, and as his son proceeded to fuc up various government and military appointments, the son became deluded, so much so,  that the loving parents passed a decree, and banished their son to a cell in the house, till he died. Charming. No wonder volcanoes and earthquakes tried to wreck the place. But tourists don’t see the pain, they just love the architecture and the culture.

This contemporary theory that the poor of the world have fallen behind, is a complete myth. The truth of the matter is that Europe and the West have stolen, ripped of and raped Asia, Latin America and Africa to the point of obscenity. It continues today, with farcical World Bank and IMF, ‘aid and development’ funds, of say $5 billion a year, concealing the $50 billion they bleed out of the same people in crippling interest payments. And I add, the aid is fraud, it simply benefits the corportocracy and the corrupt 1% elite.

But wine with dinner with an Arequipa cultured elite, and elegant courtyard accommodation, over two cosmopolitan days in Arequipa where both a surprise and delight, evil politics aside.
Pulling out of Arequipa after an exquisite breakfast alongside the Alliance François library, this time I was better prepared for a wild ride.
With no particular affection for fucking lama it seemed entirely ethical to fleece some Alpacas of their insulation, buying myself more alpaca scarfs, head socks and jumpers for a tenth of their Western price, and so back up to 5K high I motored, knocking off truck after truck on the 50k climb.
Then things got fun. The road went dirt. Bye bye busload after busload of packaged tourists, as a trail of bright Alpaca scarfs fluttered farewell to overtaken punters. This was canyon country, Colca style. Canyons here are a kilometre deep…so again, it was time to git down brother. What an exhilarating ride, sweeping and heeling down the gorge.
Chivay is the accom town on the valley floor, and it comes with some hot mineral springs that do wonders for bikers buggered shoulder blades.
If I can’t get minerals into my body by gut infected organs, at least I can do it via my skin.
The whole valley gets under your skin, infact. Condors soar about, albeit not about me. The Inca have left miles of Pachacutec engineered terraces, as a nation that can produce food in irrigated abundance can feed armies of 40,000 at the same time as feeding another 40,000 building Pachucutec’s visions and the centre of the then world, Cusco, in an urban development plan that demolished most of the city’s core to rebuild in foundations that the thieving Spaniard than rebuilt on again.

Deeper into the valley, things got beautiful beyond geological belief. The rugged little dirt bike came into its own, as the roads deteriorated, and the vistas exploded. I really cannot think of any other mountain location, on earth, that can match some parts of the Andes, for sheer, raw magnificence. But I admit, I‘m mainly a sailor, so I am no expert. The bike could wind its way down donkey paths, that lead into the most extraordinary textures in tiers of flowering crops…it just felt like I was walking through a painting.

All was life, nothing was mechanised or electrified, a single car passed maybe once every hour or two.

What is it, about life above 3000m, the world over, in traditional village life, that makes every mountain culture decorate their attire in the colours of a cottage garden in full flower? Whether it be Karen, Vietnamese, Peruvian of Mexican…its pretty much the same attitude to colour in fashion.   In Peru, its the bright red chest, the verdant green skirts, the Christmas lights in the trimmings, and in Colca, even broad brim bowler hats are an embroidery partay. There is some trippy little insight that you get living above 3000m, some sort of cosmic colouring competition. Peruvian women are masters of colour, and regardless of the mud and the manure, it’s every day the same outfit, flying their united colours, the ones that Beneton can only fake.

The tour sales staff in Argequipa were wrong about the roads, the ones that they warned me were impassable. I could get anywhere, albeit only thanks to my enduro racing background, and the last few years of weekend trips, up near impossible Daintree hinterland trails, where more often than not, I was hammering down the road, under the bike, rather than on top of it.

There was no way that you take on the Andes sitting down, it was on the foot pegs, all day, as when your weight is on the pegs, your legs control the centre of gravity, like riding a surf board, and the suspension was free to take hits and rocker over the rocks, rather than slam them. Years ago,  when lying exhausted at the end of days brain blurring enduro racing, I was reminded, that an hour of motocross, is measurably more athletic than an hour of first grade football, and whilst it make not look physical, by hell it is. How those off road bikers get Paris to Dakar at the speeds they do, day after day, is beyond me.

I rode myself off my maps. Infact, I rode myself of maps, into locations and across durations, that had I had a good map, I would have reconsidered. The edge of my last map said something like, Cusco, 300k. No big deal I thought, that’s just 50k more than my regular ride along the Daintree coast, where a few cold schooners at the bottom pub in Cooktown awaited me. How wrong I was. Leaving just after dawn, from the first opening of the farmer’s market, I had warmed my gloves around a hot mug of coca leaves, steam fogging my goggles, as I stuffed a goat’s cheese and egg rolls in my pockets. Alpaca head socks and scarfs, twin sets of gloves over gloves, jackets over jackets over jackets, boots laced up, pack’s strapped down with sliced inner tube, map shreds pinned under the ocky straps, and off into the mountain passes I headed. A kayakers kit bag was strapped across the handlebars for a windscreen. Waxed coconut oil covered my face, lip balm was applied on the hour, and I was ready for a fun day. A fun day, soon turned into a massive day, as roads became progressively more arctic, more high altitude, and more pot holed.  From dawn to dusk, mo