Travelling with a Folding Bicycle

Category Archives: THE BIG ONE

Back Home with a Surprise – END OF PART ONE

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9 months of solo travelling to decide to stop and go back home.
1 month to prepare a big joke, like April’s fool.
Here the last 4 days of my bizarre Milan – Bangkok, without airplanes and with a folding bicycle (with the final VIDEO).
And the end of FIRST PART …

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29 March, Bangkok (Thailand) | Day 301 🇹🇭
And also the day number 300 went by, my friends.
10 months, 20 Countries, that’s true.
Who would have dared to say so, one year ago?
Not me, for sure.

Yet, here I am.
In Thailand.
300 days later.
A Country that gave me a lot, like all the other ones actually.
A Country that was supposed to be the last one of this journey.
The final destination.
In that distant imagery I had on June 2nd 2016, at least.

Some say no matter where you’re going, but the road.
That the road is the Journey itself, after all.
Do I believe it too?
Maybe.
Yes, I think I do.

Have I been changing a lot during this time?
Am I a different person?
A better man?
I don’t know.
Maybe.
Maybe not.

I only know that there was no time, before, when I had been able to listen to myself and to learn (or try to do so) as much as I did in this last year of my life.
That I don’t want to stop.
Not yet.
That this is nothing but the beginning.
But, also, that something is about to change.
Very soon.
Tomorrow, indeed.

A new adventure is about to begin.
Something imponderable until recently.
Something I couldn’t ever imagine before. Something maybe illogical, too.
Something that is going to be a very hard test, perhaps the hardest one.

Thanks to all of You who have been part of this incredible journey, from the very beginning.
Thanks to all of You who – maybe even unconsciously – have given me support, energy, determination, love, complicity, courage.
This first part of the journey – here I officialise it – has really come to the end.
From tomorrow another one will start.
And, honestly … I cannot wait for it.

30 March, Bangkok (Thailana) | Day 302 🇹🇭
After that agencies like Reuters and Ansa went crazy looking for clues about what I mentioned yesterday … the time to start revealing the patterns of the painting has really come.

So, why after 10 months am I about to break rule number 1 (no flights) and fly to Hong Kong?

A) I need a new Chinese visa, and this is the city where it’s easier to get it in all South East Asia
B) I’m going to buy a new camera in one of Kowloon huge technological malls
C) I fell in love, so I’m only following the call of my heart
D) I’m going to sign a project contract with an international hotels chain
E) A + C
F) B + D
G) All the 4 reasons

First, though, let’s see if I manage to arrive in the right destination.
For I don’t remember it properly, after such a long time, what flying is about.
And these Thai letters … are crazy as hell.

31 March, Hong Kong | Day 303 🇹🇭
Flying towards the dawn and having lunch overlooking Hong Kong bay.
The changes, in a few hours, were radical and devastating.
This, probably, from Monday will be the new “meeting room” that I’ll use for business meetings or sales calls.

So, yes, I still have two days to find energy and motivation, but I hope to succeed.
Otherwise, I’ll leave again.
For those who paid attention to my past posts, therefore, yesterday’s point D was the first – and perhaps the only one – to be considered as “certain.”

But there’s more.
There will be more.
Too long to be written and read, so I thought I’d better going on a live video, tomorrow, when I’ll be calmer and – hopefully – a bit more relaxed.

During sunset maybe (more or less at lunch time in Italy), looking at the skyline of this city.
A stage, shining brightly, on a Saturday night.
Like in a show, which still I don’t know anything about.


1 April, BACK HOME!
OK, the Live video was a mega-fail (wtf, even in Cambodia they got the 4G! I’m really back in Italy …)
Here it is, the full one.
Anyway, yes, I’m not in Hong Kong 🙂

COMPLETE VIDEO: HERE

 

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FINAL STATISTICS

21 COUNTRIES:Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Rep., Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand.

KM on BICYCLE: 4685 (9 punctures)
KM on AUTOBUS: 13545 (max 50 hours)
KM on TRAIN: 13610 (max 18 hours)
NIGHTS in HOSTELS/TENT: 196 
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 80
NIGHTS in TRAIN / AUTOBUS: 13

EXPENSES: € 8019 (+ EXTRA 552)
DAILY AVERAGE: € 27

THAILAND (Second Part): Koh Tao and Khao Sok (10 – 28 March)

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The last part of the journey and of ten months of solo travelling – before the unexpected return home – was devoted to two of the various pearls of Thailand: Koh Tao island, with its pristine beaches and stunning sunsets, and one of the most uncontaminated and breathtaking places I ever visited in my life, Khao Sok National Park.

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10 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 282 🇹🇭
“Very good Vieri!
Are you happy now?!
You and your damn decisions!
I told you to go to other places, cause Thailand is big and rich … but nothing!
You and this idea of ​​coming to Koh Tao!
You and your head!
Always following those silly unnecessary sensations!
Bravo, indeed!
Happy to be in this Hell now?!
Hey, look … I’m leaving! “

“Okay. I’ll see you in a few months then.
In case I get bored here in this Hell.”

[ 10 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Chalok Bay. 5,30 pm.

11 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 283 🇹🇭
There’s a huge problem in Thailand.
I came across it from the very beginning, when a border guard approached me and my bike on his own to take a picture of me, with extreme courtesy.
The same problem I found in the smiles of Chongmek monks, where I was a guest for one night, or in Scott’s hospitality and those guys I played soccer with in Ubon Ratchathani.
I saw it in the kindness of the people and in the hugs with old and new friends, in turbulent Bangkok.
I had another long dose on the trains and in the streets, surrounded by greetings and curiosity.
And I have been experiencing it since a little more than one day on Koh Tao island, everywhere I turn.

There’s a serious problem in Thailand.
There is too much to chose from, too many places to see, too many people to meet, too many moments to savor (these are 4 random photo taken from the last 24 hours), too many moments when you wish to stop and do not move forever, hoping time would do the same thing.

Because there’s only one problem in Thailand.
It is too beautiful.

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12 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 284 🇹🇭
For many years of my life I only had one concept of “sea”.
Tied to a single place, it was something connected to a strip of land, sand and waves in Italy named Celle Ligure.
Maybe because I have spent there several summers of my life (lucky for having been able to do so).
Maybe because – even knowing that there are much more beautiful places around – for almost all of my life I have known only that one.
Whatever it may be, but for me the “sea” has always been “one sea”.
Thanks to many travels I laid my eyes on many other oceans, gulfs and bays … but my concept of “sea”, after all, has never really changed.
“To go to the sea” for me has always meant to go “there”, where I knew everything, where I knew everyone, where there was no left sand to walk on and no left water to swim in.
I never felt – it was my limit, I know – an impossible curiosity towards new things, towards the outside.

Until last year.
Until Greece.
Until the Cyclades.
There, on those islands, I learned how to venture myself into new beaches, into unknown blue, cycling or walking through grim coasts which suddenly revealed hidden treasures of rare beauty.
The “sea” suddenly began to move onto other shapes.
Other colors.
And me, with him.
It could be red like the Red Beach in Santorini, silver-gray like Kleftiko cliffs in Milos, purple like Kamares sunset in Sifnos, white like Plaka in Naxos, mystical green like Aegliali in Amorgos.

There, during those two months of travel I finally learned the pleasure of discovery, the thrill of the New.
And it was all connected with the sea.
With the colour, with the sound, with the smell, with the energy of the sea.
During this long journey – also due to the route I’ve taken – I didn’t touch or see the sea so many times.
The only island I was on – Koh Rong, Cambodia – was extremely fascinating, but going around on my own was almost impossible and this somehow limited my desire to push myself in front of new beaches, new waves, new energies, new “seas”.

It is basically for this reason that, once I entered Thailand, I decided to travel first to the South, rather than in the Northern forests.
I was hoping to find some island where I could lose myself again, day after day, in that thirst I had loved in Greece which led me to meet new concepts of “sea” and, thus, new sides of myself.

I’m glad I did.
Cause today, it all happened again.
Here, in front of this sea.
Here, in Tanote Bay.

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13 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 285 🇹🇭
“Tomorrow’s too late,
Future never comes.”

A friend told me, just yesterday.

[ 13 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Shark Bay. 4 pm.

For some reason I couldn’t think about anything else (hoping that future would come indeed), today, before swimming to the center of the Shark Bay, to see sharks, live, waving “hello” with their cute black fin, for the first time in my life.

14 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 286 🇹🇭
“OK, Vieri. Then, if it’s okay for you, we will have the second meeting in about ten days, in Koh Tao. I’ll keep you updated, but we will be happy to welcome you as our guest for lunch at the hotel, so you would also be able to know one of our resorts. If you can, in the meantime, move to the Island. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

The first meeting was in Bangkok, happened due a number of connections and a bit of chance (or perhaps no), and ended with a handshake.
The third … we’ll see if it comes.
For now I just enjoy the (possible) idea of the next months.
And the view.
From up here.

[ 14 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). A fancy swimming pool with a view. 3 pm.

15 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 287 🇹🇭
It’s the same old story, actually.
It’s still my favourite pastime, when I’m on an island.
To take the bicycle, to pedal and walk (if roads require to do so, sometimes because of impolite dirt and sometimes because of implausible slopes) trying to reach a new bay.
Losing myself also.
For a few hours, at times.
And then, very sweaty and hot, to slip into the water and to swim connecting those land banks which embrace that unique and inimitable sea groove, tying it up in ribbons.

As if every time I wanted to conquer it with my own strength – from the very start to the very end – that pretty little … new treasure chest of blue.

[ 15 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Leuk Bay. 2 pm.

16 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 288 🇹🇭
In six days that I’m in Koh Tao I had only ventured myself in the Eastern part of the island.
I was told that it was the most beautiful one.
Undeniable, indeed.

Not that the Western part sucks, however.

[ 16 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Mae Had Bay. 4 pm.

17 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 289 🇹🇭
One week.
Exactly 7 days, since the time I arrived.
It didn’t happen since quite a while.
From Yangshuo, to be precise.
To stay so long in the same place.
In the same island, in this case.
It is as if something was holding me here, almost against my own will.

And I really cannot understand why.

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18 Marzo, Koh Tao (Thailandia) | Giorno 290 🇹🇭
Ok, I may also be obsessed with Thai (but not only) sunsets, and actually I had something else to write about today … but how could I choose not to share such a show?
Here it’s not only about witnessing another day that has dragged on, nor contemplating a new moment that shines, comes to the climax and then, silently, leaves.

But it’s about peeping how God himself sets to work, drawing on the colours of his infinite palette and using a seraphic celestial eraser to clean the painting, so to complete another of his incredible masterpieces.

[ 18 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Chalok Bay. 6,30 pm.


19 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 291 🇹🇭
When you can take a boat – like everyone does – to reach one of the most secluded bays of Koh Tao, but you choose instead to venture yourself on the alternative way, sweating and having fun for an hour and a half on absurd roads and terrible dirt in the middle of a tropical forest on a Thai island.
And then getting a few hundred meters from the goal, locking the bike to a tree, walking down a long stairway, stopping for a photo in front of one of the most beautiful sea cradles you’ve ever seen, preparing to enter the water to swim the last 200 meters which separate you from the beach, closing all of your items in the airtight bag you bought a few days earlier.
Finding out just once you’re dry on the sand that you didn’t close it as tightly as you thought.
Gambling away your camera, like this, for good.
Swearing to the point that you wake up even the corals.
Because you got to Mango Bay the way you wanted to, but you’re a real idiot.

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20 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 292 🇹🇭
You are strolling around quietly on the beach, drawn in your thoughts, when you see them.
The Thai masseuses.
You don’t know why, but instinctively you give in to their invitations and believe that it is finally time for a Thai massage.

You lie down and prepare to dream about palm trees, coconut oil, swings on the sea, lazy waves and smell of salt … but she, the little masseuse, crushes you into crazy morse and violent strokes, as if she wanted to fight like she was Hulk Hogan.
And muscles and bones react as if all the coconuts that just finished dreaming about had impetuously fallen on you out of a sudden.
And with them … the whole palm.

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21 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 293 🇹🇭
First of the two-days Free Diving course just passed, in time to recover from apnea losing myself into these colours.
As a former swimmer, I thought it was an absurd easy thing.
Instead, another one of those cases where I have to reconsider myself: difficult, challenging, interesting.
Very, very, very interesting.

A new way of learning about your body.
A new way of living water.
Tomorrow we test it in the sea (and see with which kind of results).
Tomorrow we test it down there.
Where my eyes fly over, not far from the purple, in this very moment.

[ 21 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Sairee Beach (in front if Big Blue Diving Center). 6,30 pm.


22 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 294 🇹🇭
Two days to learn in a different way to know better an element – Water – where I grew up and where I have been living for years.
Two days to try to discover a new, different, strange and fascinating world.
Two days to start going down towards the darker blue and more into the depths of myself.
Two days to be able to hold my breath for about 3 minutes and to get closer to 10 meters deep, with a sully ear, in the calm sea.
Two days to figure out that if in horizontal swimming I’m still good, vertically, instead, for now … I’m happily ridiculous.

[ 22 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). The Sea. 11 am.


23 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 295 🇹🇭
One of the reasons that encouraged me to stay (and allowed me to do so), for over two weeks, on Koh Tao island.
Every night … a different one.

Tomorrow the second and last reason.

Cause tomorrow night we start again.
Tomorrow night, we leave another time.

[ 23 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Chalok Bay. 6,30 pm.


24 March, Koh Tao (Thailand) | Day 296 🇹🇭
The second reason why I stayed so long in Koh Tao is, as always, the most important one: persons.
Each one with their own history, each with their own experiences, with their habits, their aspirations, their desires, their doubts, their questions.
Each one with their energy.
Each one with their smile.
So thanks Surja, Fernando, Nines, Mei, Belen, Miao, Lena, Isabel, Julia, Max, Barda, Stefano, Lisandro, Mario, Rakel, Morgane, Andrea, Diego, Arno, Bio, Chiara, Francesco and Noky for making these two weeks even more rich and … unforgettable.
Ahora, adelante!

[ 24 March 2017 ] Koh Tao (Thailand). Chalok Bay. 2,30 pm.

25 March, Khao Sok (Thailand) | Day 297 🇹🇭
Two weeks on an island, surrounded by clubs, bars, wifi, phone lines and satellite receivers, and when are you going to receive the phone call you’ve been waiting for days?

When you have just arrived in the middle of the Thai jungle, and the only thing you can hear coming from the phone … are the frogs.

[ 25 March 2017 ] Khao Sok Park (Thailand). 3 pm.

26 e 27 March, Khao Sok (Thailand) | Days 298 – 299 🇹🇭
Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t able to maintain the daily commitment of sharing something – even a simple picture, a story, an impression – on this page.
The fact is that, after having cycled for about 70 km to get to the Eastern entrance of Khao Sok National Park, along with some friends I got on a tailboat which, after about an hour and a half above green-emerald waters – in the middle of mountains and valleys whose beauty I could never imagine before – I reached some little wooden bungalows, floating on the edge of a lake cove where there is no electricity (except for a couple of hours in the evening), running water and any type of connection.
Fortunately, I dare to say.
Tomorrow – when I’ll be back in Bangkok for the last part of this Thai month – I’ll write a little more about this Park, using some of the photos taken by Simone Piccini / Wanderhang (my camera is broken since the day I had an accident in Koh Tao).
These three pictures I’m posting here have been taken with my phone, in those moments when I managed to wake up from the enchantment I fell into because of the magic surrounding me.

I don’t think they can give you completely the idea of ​​the wonderful isolation that I was living – and listening – for almost a full day.
But I hope they can.

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28 Marzo, Bangkok (Thailandia) | Giorno 300 🇹🇭
Imagine a star-shaped set of valleys, 165 square kilometres wide.
Imagine a King who decided to build a dam, in the 80s, to change the economy and the agriculture of a virtually unliveable tropical zone.
Imagine a river that takes over a year to fill the new natural “pool”.
Imagine an immense lake that grows deep, month after month, until almost a hundred meters, surrounded by stunning karst mountain which suddenly become habitat for dozens of new species of animals, birds, reptiles and fishes.
Imagine you get there after having cycled for 70 kilometres, forcing your body to the limit and suffering because of the oppressive heat.
Imagine you spot the lake for the first time when you’re still hot and dripping sweat.
Imagine you dive into it immediately, right after parking your bicycle, falling in love at once with its warm emerald-green waters.
Imagine going up, along with 4 friends, on a tail-boat strongly piloted by a local Thai lady who’s not much into smiles but still very calm and gentle.
Imagine flying on the blue mirror for over an hour and a half, losing yourself, breath after breath, in the most wonderful immensity.
Imagine reaching a series of small wooden rafthouses, perched on the slopes of a mountain that now has become a wild shore.
Imagine you find your nest into a 2-square-meters room with no electricity, no water and any kind of connection.
Imagine swimming in front of your tiny wooden patio, trying to find out what is hiding down in the depths and to maintain your balance on a buoying tree trunk.
Imagine you jump on a kayak and decide to paddle towards a new part of the lake, before darkness comes; imagine you get surprised by a tropical storm, when you’re in the middle of nowhere and of a deafening silence; imagine you observe the surface that now ripples far away in the distance, where rain is already lashing the waters, contemplating it with a smile; imagine the wind that suddenly gets crazy and starts haunting you, gliding on you like a monstrous hawk ready to throw you into the lake.

Imagine you’re not afraid of it, but, instead, you feel like abandoning yourself completely to nature and to its threatening strength.
Imagine you close your eyes, inhale and prepare yourself to receive every single drop of rain, embracing it like part of your own body and your new being.
Imagine joy suddenly exploding, for a short moment, all inside and around you.
Imagine living the present as never before, and as if you hadn’t expected anything but that, all this time.
Imagine a night full of stars, on an artificial lake, sitting on the edge of a wooden path, surrounded by mountains and natural sounds, perfectly matching with the music of your heart.
Imagine the dawn. In the same place. With the same emotions.
Imagine one of the most incredible places you’ve been during 10 months of travel.
One of the most mind-blowing of your life.
One of the most magical of your dreams.

All of this, for me, was Khao Sok.

Photo Credits: Simone Piccini – wanderhang
Wanderhang – viaggio dentro al mondo

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MAP

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LAOS briefly again and the entrance to THAILAND (25 February – 9 March)

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On February 24th, I definitively abandoned Vietnam and entered for the second time in Laos.
A brief stage into a country I had already lived in, to meet two friends and to reach – by land – the ultimate destination and goal of my trip.
An exotic and distant goal, thinking about the day I left.
One goal that, finally, on February 28th 2017, unraveled there in front of my eyes: Thailand.

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25 February, Pakse | Day 269 🇱🇦
I met Donatella and Gaetano for the first time, even if we are distant relatives, only a few days before I left for this long journey.
It was one of my dear uncles who told me about them, their travels and adventures around the world they went on when I was just a kid.

We felt instantly a natural understanding, a deep curiosity and an extreme mutual esteem.
When they invited me for dinner and my bike was already packed for the imminent departure, I remember I told them that I really had no idea or planned route for the months to come.

In my mind there was only a weird and bizarre project, but nothing more.
I would have started – that was the only thing I knew – travelling for a while throughout Europe, then maybe continuing up in Russia, then maybe in Mongolia and China, then maybe in South East Asia. With no flights.

They listened and motivated me, telling me about their little house in a remote paradise in Northern Thailand, where I always would have found a place to stay, in case I ever managed to get there.
Asia, by that time, was only a far mirage, which honestly I never thought I would have ever been able to achieve.

Since that day, however, Thailand became for me the ultimate goal of this trip.
Unconsciously – perhaps because of this unconditional proposal or perhaps because it really seemed to me like something impossible, by that time – I chose it as the final destination of my hypothetical path.

Well today, after nine months, I met them again. In Pakse, Laos.
They are here for a short holiday in the land they regard as their second home.
And I am here cause I’m about to enter Thailand, and so, probably, to finish my funny adventure.

Those kind of persons who are able to speak with their eyes, with their hearts and with their smiles.
A wonderful couple, two incredible travellers … and two real friends.
With whom it was great to talk again for hours, to laugh happily, to embrace warmly and to try to think, exactly like the very first time, about new and impossible – maybe! – weird and bizarre projects.

[ 25 February 2017 ] Pakse (Laos). Xe Don River. 6 pm.

26 February, Pakse | Day 270 🇱🇦
I still cannot understand why I decided to come back, even if only for just a few days, in this place.
Here.
In Laos.

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27 February, Pakse | Day 271 🇱🇦
After travelling in all these three countries, I can say I understood and felt on my skin the meaning of the beautiful saying:

“The Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it while it grows”

This is perhaps the very reason why I came back to Laos before the final rush (maybe).
Because Laos is not only a Country.
Laos is also a lifestyle.
Laos … is a state of mind.

PS: the picture was not taken today, but a few days ago in Savannakhet; and in it there’s everything you can say about this wonderful land.
And that one there in front, just beyond the Mekong River … is already Thailand.
Where I’m going tomorrow.
And it will be a very important day.

[ 24 February 2017 ] Savannakhet (Laos). View over the Mekong River, and Thailand. 6 pm.

28 February, Arriving in Thailand | Day 272 🇹🇭
“Thailand! Ha ha!” – I used to say.

Anytime someone asked me where I wanted to go, since that distant June 2nd 2016, there was always no answer but this: “Thailand! Ha ha!”
I used to say “Thailand” because it sounded exotic, fabulous, ambitious, exuberant, scary.
I used to say “Thailand” because it sounded impossible.
I was myself the first, not to believe it.
“Ha ha!” … I used to laugh at me.

Since then I have been living an incredible kaleidoscope of emotions.
A huge bonfire of feelings, hard to be explained: I started, I pushed, I enjoyed myself and the road, I learned, I sweated, I suffered, I got off, I turned back, I dreamed, I thought, I loved, I left, I fell down, I got up, I struggled, I hoped, I got bored, I cried, I stumbled.
I stumbled several times.
I never gave up.

I used to repeat it continuously, during all these months.
That absurd mantra which somehow always made me laugh, and allowed me to continue.
I must have seemed crazy, at times.
“Thailand! Ha ha!”

Today, guys, February 28th 2017, is a day I will never forget.
It has arrived.
Here it is.
I did it.
Fuck I did it!
“Thailand! Ha ha!”

I could say a million things.
I could say that today I feel invincible.
I could say that nothing scares me anymore.
I could indulge myself into silly rhetoric like “Carpe Diem!”, “Follow your dreams!” or “Everything is possible, if you believe!”
Yes, very nice.
Yes, very true, if we like.

But actually I’m able to say only one thing, today.
One thing I never believed it would have been possible for me to say.
Simply, and sadly, I stopped laughing.
But as for smiling, well, guys … I guess I just started!

“Thailand! Ha ha!”

[ 28 February 2017 ] Chongmek (Thailand). Laos – Thailand Border. 1 pm.

1 March, Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand) | Day 273 🇹🇭
I would have never been able to imagine such a kind of welcoming, from Thailand.

Yesterday:
– My first night in a temple, hosted by Buddhist monks in Chongmek
– An amazing huge grilled fish I bought from a street vendor, which costed almost nothing

Today:
– A blinding dawn, coming from Laos
– Perfect “video game” roads
– Smiles and greetings in every single village, or at each checkpoint
– Landscapes resembling a Maupassant’s novel
– Monks walking on the left roadside (driving in Thailand is like in England), able to spot your arrival even without turning their faces
– The sweet assuring faces of King Bhumibol, whose death in October has thrown the country into a subdued and poignant year of mourning, and his Queen, everywhere
– A DEADLY heat
– The arrival in the first Thai city of this journey, Ubon Ratchathani, where I could finally see a beautiful city park after very long time
– Scott’s, an Australian professor and a cycle-traveller too I met through WarmShowers community, unexpected friendly hospitality

If this is just the beginning … it seems this month is going to be very interesting.

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2 March, Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand) | Day 274 🇹🇭

“So? What do you think about this Ubon Ratchathani?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Oh, great! Tell me! What did you see or do then today?”

“Nothing. It was too hot. I spent all day in a coffee shop and a park. I really did nothing.”

“Ah. And how can you say then that is beautiful?”

“Don’t know. Just a feeling. I have been reading at the bar for two hours, next to the front door, and anyone who entered – believe me, anybody! – greeted me and smiled at me. The coffee was also good. Then I went to the park. The heat was oppressive, so I looked for a spot in the shade and laid down there. I wrote and read again, surrounded by singing birds and delighted by a warm breeze. Then I took a nap. The laughter of some children and the sun itself woke me up: it had bypassed the shadow that was my shelter and already started to burn my calf. I observed the children through the spokes of my bike. I drank some lychee juice and waited. Some other children started playing soccer in front of me and a gleaming monument, and, without uttering any word, they asked me if I wanted to join them. I even didn’t realize it, but I was already walking towards the field, ready to get my feet dirty with them. An hour later, a tender sunset. The park had been flooded with people. Someone was playing basketball, someone was jogging, someone was listening to music and someone was simply walking around, now that the temperature had become more liveable. The birds, meanwhile, never stopped singing – not even for a second.
You see, my friend: all of this, for me … is just beautiful.”

[ 2 March 2017 ] Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand). Thung Si Muang Park. 4,30 pm.

3 March, Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand) | Day 275 🇹🇭
An unexpected and surprising proposal that perhaps will change the fate of my next 3 to 6 months?
Maybe yes.
But it is still too soon to talk about it.

Meanwhile I read a book about Shah Reza Pahlavi, under a dreamcatcher caressed by the wind.
And in the evening I jump on a train.
A night one.
New wandering dreams waiting for me.

A train to a mythical, fascinating and monstrous city.
A train to Bangkok.

[ 3 March 2017 ] Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand). Scott’s House. 4 pm.

4 March, Bangkok (Thailand) | Day 276 🇹🇭
Hello, short-named city!

Happy to be back after almost 8 years, “Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchaniburiron Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit” (which translated should be something like “The City of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukam”)!

Glad to see you again, Bangkok!

[ 4 March 2017 ] Bangkok (Thailand). Lumpini Park. 9 am.

5 March, Bangkok (Thailand) | Day 277 🇹🇭
It is not the first time I’m in Bangkok.
I was here several years ago, with friends, and remained only a couple of days.
I remember that I did nothing, nor see anything, that time.

The city was forced into an hallucinating heat and I was scared since the very beginning: we came with an evening flight and while the plane was landing, I looked out of the windows and couldn’t distinguish any kind of end in such a massive city.

Today, still excited from yesterday’s arrival, I thought it was time to discover more about Bangkok and so I went to the Royal Palace and the famous Wat Pho. It’s true that I’m staying in a hostel which is not exactly in the center, but how can you find a “center” in a city that is about the size of an Italian region?

I took a train (the futuristic Skytrain), then another, then a boat. Nearly two hours later I was in front of the Royal Palace, where I was hit by an oppressive stuffiness, a flood of tourists and even more undistinguished distressing noises.
Once in Wat Pho I resisted barely half an hour, mostly sitting under a tree, and I understood – if I ever needed this kind of proof again – not to be done for city environments.
Not one of this measure, at least.

Bangkok is a city that embraces you, seduces you, fascinates you, excites you, conquers you, chews you, strips you and then swallows you.
Someone loves it, someone succumbs to it and comes out destroyed. Annihilated.
I fall into this second category.

It is in a day like today that I think about towns like Ljubljana, Novi Sad, Tallinn, or even more timid places such as the Yulong River valley, Shaxi village and Olkhon Island.
If it wasn’t for some meetings I didn’t want to miss, probably I would have never even come to Bangkok, or certainly I would have gone already.

But, after nine months of travelling, I have now learned that nothing happens by chance and that even here I will find a new important piece of that big jigsaw I’m trying to complete since a very long time.

I totally ignore the shape and the colours it may have, but I’ll look for it. I’ll wait for it.
I’ll hold it tight in my fist, once I find it.
Always assuming that, in a very overwhelming way, it didn’t catch me already itself.

[ 5 March 2017 ] Bangkok (Thailand). Sukumvit Road, around civic number 1799. 6 pm.

6 March, Bangkok (Thailand) | Day 278 

“Like that time in Pakistan, when I had to be escorted on a military truck for several kilometers, through Beluchistan region.🇹🇭

Or when in northern Myanmar I travelled with 7 other riders, because we could only do it in group, police following us minute after minute, and we didn’t see any other tourists even for days.
Or when, a few weeks ago, I decided to drive somewhere far from the main roads across the arid valleys of Cambodia, near Battambang, and suddenly my bike stopped working and I was with no water, no food, in the middle of nowhere and with a bee hive making fun out of me. It took more than three hours to disassemble the motorbike and reassemble it, hoping it wouldn’t leave me, right there. I was about to cry, but in the end – I really don’t know how – I came out of it. And now I can laugh again!”

Max was the one who, by coincidence, I met close to a dry waterfall near Tad Lo – a day in January when I ventured myself on foot around the Bolaven plateau – and who gave me a lift to the top of the mountain.
I met him again on Don Det Island, few days later; beers and hammock had been our pastime for a few days.
Today, two months later, I hug him in Bangkok.

In front of him and his huge bike I feel like a kid on the first day at school.
27 year old, German, with contagious smile and energy, Max left his hometown on his motorcycle a few weeks before me.

One of those travellers you’d be listening for hours.
One of those friends you’d instantly get along with.
One of those persons who don’t need much to be happy, who look at the world with humility and curious eyes … and you would never stop learning something from.

Bangkok, after all, already gave me something good.
And it’s not over yet.

[ 6 March 2017 ] Bangkok (Thailand). Ekkamai Road. 12 am.

7 Marzo, Bangkok (Thailandia) | Giorno 279 

“I know it’s a stupid question, Simone. But if I ask you which is the country that gave you the most, during this trip … which one would you pick? “🇹🇭

“Well, Vieri, it is impossible to elect a winner. Every day I’m more and more convinced that people make the real difference. It’s not about places. And, of course, the way you approach them. Every Nation that I went through gave me indelible memories: from the beauty of the decadent Europe to the infinite spaces in Russia, from the breathtaking scenery of Mongolia to the fascinating diversity of China, from the apparent perfection of Japan to the perfumes and smiles of Vietnam and Cambodia, from nature of Laos to the kindness I’m discovering now in Thailand. More is waiting for me, and I look forward to discovering new places. But, basically, I already know that the strongest emotions will always come from people. When I think back to the deepest joys of these last ten months, I think about that little kid who wanted to play the hang with me on the Trans-Siberian Railway, or that Chinese couple who hosted me in Xian for a week and with whom we ended up playing music every night, or about the children of the orphanage in Battambang and the unconditional support I received from unknown people in Moscow, Osaka, Chengdu, Ho Chi Minh and dozens of other cities, towns or villages I stopped by. This is exactly what drives me, especially in those times when I would give up: to know that there is much more out there to discover, to learn, to share with people. Something that is different from me, and at the same time is also part of me. There is where my way is heading. There is where I’m going.”

I could write for days about Simone and his journey.

Not because we have been friends for years and experienced many adventures together, and not because for several months I have been starting following his path (geographically very similar to mine, even if Simone is planning to get to Australia and to cross it for 4000 km, to embark for a month on a cargo and then to discover America during another year of life) through his Blog (look for it: Wanderhang – journey into the world), and all I’d need to do would be just quoting his words.

But simply because, when you meet someone who’s in many ways exactly like you, the only thing you have to do is writing about yourself.
And let everything flow.
By itself.
Like music.

[ 7 March 2017 ] Bangkok (Thailand). 7 pm.

8 March, Bangkok (Thailand) | Day 280 🇹🇭
There are days when you don’t need to write much.
March 8th is one of those.

[ 8 March 2017 ] Bangkok (Thailand). Ekkamai Road. 3 pm.

9 March, Bangkok (Thailand) | Giorno 281 🇹🇭
I hardly ever talk about my bicycle.
Everyone knows that is a folding one (a Brompton), although I hardly ever write about it.

In Greece, when it all began, it used to appear more often, sometimes leaning against a monastery in the Cyclades, and sometimes dozing on a beach with me. During this long journey, however, you can confirm that it wasn’t a constant presence in my posts. Yet, she was always there. Wherever I was – sweating on the road, on buses and trains in Europe or Russia, villages in China, mountains in Laos and fields in Vietnam – she was there.

I never gave her a real name, as serious cycletravellers use to do.
I only know that for me it has always been a SHE, that sometimes I found myself calling her “the Ole Betsy” – like Nutsy and Trigger’s crossbow in “Robin Hood” cartoon – and that she never abandoned me.

Some punctures (reasonable, in 9 months), very few problems (mostly in finding spare parts in China) and nothing else.
Only a long way together.
A long, long, long way together.
Recently she called for some more attention: a change of tires, a brakes control, a detailed check-up and a deep cleaning.
Never I would have done it by myself.
I came in Bangkok – among other things – also for this: to find some specialists who could do it for me.

But I couldn’t hope to find, in a small and apparently basic bicycle shop, what I found in Velotique on Ekkamai.
Not only all SHE needed, but also (and especially) passion, expertise, kindness and simplicity which two people I had never met before gave me instantly, spontaneously.

Get to Bangkok and look for a store to pay for a service, is one thing.
Go away from Bangkok with something like a brand new bicycle, two unique shirts as a gift, an article in a national magazine, and – above all – Kris and Dear’s sincere friendship … is priceless.

This, however, was yesterday.
Day 281 is about endless hours on rails, towards the ocean.
Soon new decisions will be taken – some important ones – and to do it better … I need the sea.
So I’m here awaiting the sunset looking out of the window of a Thai train, heading South, powered by a furious wind.
One thing, after all, I never did before.

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MAP

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VIETNAM (Second Part): Ninh Binh, Hanoi, Hoi An and Hue (11 – 24 February)

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After Southern Vietnam, ending a full month in such a large and interesting country, here come the stories of the North: the nature of Ninh Binh, the chaos of Hanoi, the placid Hoi An (again) and a big stage on the bicycle towards Hue, the Kingdom’s ancient Capital.

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11 February, Ninh Binh (Vietnam) | Day 255 🇻🇳
14 hours on train and another one on my bicycle to go back to … Yangshuo!

[ 11 February 2017 ] Ninh Binh (Vietnam). Somewhere in the countryside. 4 pm.

12 February, Ninh Binh (Vietnam) | Day 256 🇻🇳
I came to Ninh Binh because Fulvio, a friend I met in Nha Trang, told me many great things about the landscape and the boat rides between rivers, rice fields, caves and mountains (which remind me so much of the ones I loved in Yangshuo), especially when it’s sunny and on a midweek morning.

Upon awakening, however, the sun was only a vague figure.
And of course I realized only after the first yawns that today was Sunday.
At the pier I was overwhelmed by the number of parked buses, by the whistles of the brigades, by the megaphones of the guides and by the crazyness of people fighting to get on the boats, almost as if they were mad chickens on the run from a hungry fox.

Only three minutes and I literally flew away, trying as usual to find a more peaceful place in order to enjoy what still remains a remarkable natural masterpiece.

So I took my bicycle, crossed a few villages still gagged in the silence of the fields, reached the I-don’t-know-which-Dragon Mountain, climbed it to the top where I met two new little friends – two colored stones with a typical Vietnamese hat someone left perched on a small tower – and, from above, together we waved our hands gently both to the mountains and … to the boats of the mad chickens.

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EVENING
Oh.
I forgot to say that, at the end of the day number twohundredandfiftysix, the sun came out.
And, like a peacock, it showed off its feathers until late in the evening.
Until it collapsed.
Like this.

[ 12 February 2017 ] Ninh Binh (Vietnam). Countryside. 5,30 pm.

13 February, Hanoi (Vietnam) | Day 257 🇻🇳
It didn’t happen since a very long time.
Actually the last time was in Budapest, back in July.
Before that it happened in Zagreb and Sofia, but after Budapest … not anymore.

What am I talking about?
Simply, to be able to “conquer” the Capital of a new Country riding my bicycle.

All the other European Capitals – from the Balkans up to the Baltic countries – and again Moscow, Ulaanbaatar, Beijing, Vientiane and Phnom Penh were officially touched by train or by bus (I cannot consider those 15 km I pedaled to enter the centers in Beijing and Vientiane, once I left the bus station, to be “valid”).

I still remember the satisfaction and happiness of the first time, in Zagreb, on the fifteenth day of my journey.

Today, almost 8 months later, after covering 100 km which separated Ninh Binh from Hanoi in less than six hours, after getting punctured, after fighting with a dancing bolt, the indecent traffic and the cruel smog of the Capital of Vietnam (yes, dad, I only learned a few days ago that Ho Chi Minh City is not the Capital of Vietnam, but Hanoi), the feelings are exactly the same: satisfaction and happiness.

So here it is, the nineteenth – and also, probably, one of the last – Capital of my funny trip.
So here I am … Hanoi!

[ 13 February 2017 ] Hanoi (Vietnam). Hoan Kiem Lake. 4 pm.

14 February, Hanoi (Vietnam) | Day 258 🇻🇳
You understand that you’ve seen already enough of temples, pagodas, museums, churches and attractions when, instead of reading the captions, learning about the historical backgrounds, focusing on a guide book, observing statues and various historical objects, you prefer looking up to the sky and, day dreaming … you try to breathe the colour of the orchids.
Cause that’s the only thing you really care about.

[ 14 February 2017 ] Hanoi (Vietnam). Temple of Literature. 11,30 am.

15 February, Hanoi (Vietnam) | Day 259 🇻🇳
Beijing?
Ah, No!
Ha Noi!
(Where pollution is only a chimera)

[ 15 February 2017 ] Hanoi (Vietnam). West Lake. 5 pm.

16 February, Hanoi (Vietnam) | Day 260 🇻🇳
“And then, one day, it happened.

We have been knowing each other since we were kids. She used to live right next to me, and every morning we were going to school together. I often helped her with the backpack, when it was too heavy, and she was holding my hand until I had to say goodbye to go in my class. Sometimes we were fighting, but then her mom used to invite me for dinner and inevitably we ended up making peace.

She was by my side when I lost my parents, and I remember that I held her in my arms for a whole night that day she came to sleep with me, after someone broke her heart.
She was my best friend, and I could not hope for more.

Then, one day, while she was preparing coffee, I looked at her. Perhaps for the very first time. She was like dancing, beautifully, in her white silk dress. I was possessed by an irresistible force, so I got up and hugged her. Her hair was like jasmine. I shivered on my knees and in all the foundations of myself, when she turned to me. A tear was cutting down her cheek, but couldn’t reach nor break her smile.
That was the moment I understood everything.

Even today I ask her sometimes to dress in white, those days when the air seems to be missing. Almost always, however, I don’t even need to do it.
Because she already knows.

She. My only dawn, after a night without dreams.
She. The only one able to melt slightly on my surface, becoming herself my purest essence, like a snowflake sitting on a mountain lake, right there where the spring sun already begun to clear waters from the ice.”

As for me, it is time to leave Hanoi.
For this city brings me clearly to madness.

[ 16 February 2017 ] Hanoi (Vietnam). Hoan Kiem Lake. 3 pm.

17 February, … (…) | Day 261 🇻🇳
3 simple little rules.
The only ones I had given myself, before leaving.
The only ones that I forced myself not to break, during my trip:

1) Do not take flights, except to return home (my 10 days in Greece, in August, were only a short vacation; you’d remember that I had to wait for the Russian visa in Warsaw, where there were only 10 degrees … and I didn’t bring my bicycle with!);
2) Only use the bicycle, once you reach a new city / destination (no scooters or motorcycles, nor even for Arabian Nights attractions);
3) Never go back the way you came (except, like rule number 1, to go back home).

Today, after tireless respecting these three simple little rules for almost nine months, I’ve broken one.

Which one? You may guess  😊

I’ll tell it tomorrow, explaining also why.
Because, for a couple of days … I’m going to stay here.

[ 17 February 2017 ] … (…). 3 pm.

18 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 262 🇻🇳
It was rule number 3, the one I broke.
Yes, because yesterday, unlike what it has been done so far … I went back to a place where I had been already, following the same road.
I went back to Hoi An.

But here are the 5 reasons which brought me to that conclusion:

1) I didn’t want – even making a mistake, I know, like it happened in Cambodia with Angkor Wat – to continue up North towards Sapa and Halong, where everyone, but really everyone, seems that need to go once they’re in Vietnam;

2) From Hanoi the only connections with Laos (Luang Prabang and Vientiane) were terribly long and costly that I almost regretted the Transiberian Railway;

3) From where I am now maybe I will succeed – if weather helps me – to ride a little longer along the Vietnamese coastline, going to Hue and then cross into the South of Laos … where hopefully I’ll meet up with two friends I’ve not seen for months;

4) In Hanoi it was almost impossible to see the colour of the sky during the day and even the light of the stars, at night;

5) Because Hoi An, although extremely touristy, as I described a few days ago … is really beautiful.

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19 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 263 🇻🇳
“And on the twohundredandsixtythird day, he rested.”

[ 19 February 2017 ] Hoi An (Vietnam). An Bang Beach. 4 pm.

20 February, Da Nang (Vietnam) | Day 264 🇻🇳
When you read a poetry for the first time and then you meet it again in a place, the same day:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”
(Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī)

[ 20 February 2017 ] Da Nang (Vietnam). View from Linh Ung Pagoda. 5,30 pm.

21 February, Da Nang –  Hue (Vietnam) | Day 265 🇻🇳
Ok.
After leaving the beautiful – if sunny – Da Nang.
After conquering the super hard Hai Van Pass.
After melting under the heat and sweating like never before.
After getting punctured … again.
After reaching the ancient Hue only in the evening, escorted by a fire ball high in the sky.
After suffering for other 120 km on the roads of Vietnam … I think I can be satisfied even with this Country.

And now I’m finally ready to begin my way to … Tibet!
Maybe  😂.

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22 February, Hue (Vietnam) | Day 266 🇻🇳
“I was born 23 years ago in a village between Hoi An and Quy Nhon. My parents are farmers. They grow rice and vegetables, and every day my mother sells them at the market. Me and my four brothers, even as children, used to work hard to help them. It was the only thing we knew, and the only one we could do. Sometimes we even couldn’t go to school, because we had to feed the pigs or to graze the oxen. But I liked it. I remember that sometimes I used to bring the animals with me to discover new mountains, new valleys, new fields. Wherever they stopped to eat the grass, I used to take out my books and study. Or to read. Or write. Today I’m studying here in Hue, to become a doctor. I hope I’ll be useful someday with my future job, and I know that, somehow, I will. Although sometimes I think back to those very peaceful moments, when I was alone with my father’s oxen on an unknown hill, and I regret them.”

Thank you, Ban, for stopping me while I was walking slowly on a day I just wanted to do nothing.
Thank you for convincing me to practice a bit of English with you, smiling purely for an hour.
And thank you for opening me the gates to your story.
And to your beautiful poetry.

[ 22 February 2017 ] Hue (Vietnam). Perfume River. 5 pm.

23 February, Hue (Vietnam) | Day 267 🇻🇳
When someone says “The Forbidden City”, the mind flies, immediately, to Beijing, to its dazzling Imperial Palace and the court/city that arose around it.

I was fortunate two years ago, when I visited it.
I still remember the astonishment that overcame me when I entered, right after crossing the ramparts which separate it from Tiananmen Square, and all those fantasies that followed about dynasties, heroes, battles, myths, tales and customs from a China that no longer exists …

I also recall the flood of tourists (mostly Chinese) that was there, from which it wasn’t easy at all to get away, just to carve out a few moments of dreams and solitary visions.

Today, in Hue, I discovered that also Vietnam can boast its own small “Forbidden City”, the place where the Emperor used to live, in this ancient capital of the Kingdom, before history decided to lash furiously this warm and friendly country.

All the fantasies about dynasties, heroes, battles, myths, tales and customs which this Citadel is able to evoke, are probably not even comparable to its giant neighbour’s majestic and imposing ones … but as for silences, dreams and moments of incredible solitary visions, it is undoubtedly the most beautiful Forbidden City in which I’ve ever managed to lose myself.

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24 February, Towards Laos | Day 268 🇻🇳 – 🇱🇦
I had high expectations about Vietnam, before leaving. I never understood why, but it is a country that always intrigued me, fascinated me and which I always wanted to visit.

During this trip, however, my interest had been greatly reduced, especially in these recent months in Asia and after listening to various stories from other travelers, often far from positive.

Many times I heard something like: “Oh, Vietnam … forget it! It’s a country in extreme changes, highly populated, hyper busy, very touristic and even unsafe, especially in big cities! And then the Vietnamese people: you’re just a walking dollar for them! They always try to cheat you, you’ll see!”

The day I asked for a month-visa, in Phnom Penh, I had mixed feelings: on the one hand I didn’t want to miss the chance to stay in Vietnam, if it ever convinced me, but on the other I was certain that I would never come to the end of my 30 days.

Well, that day was January 23rd, the day before a bus led me to Ho Chi Minh.
The impact was hard, I cannot deny it.
Chaos, traffic, noise and bad weather undermined, during the first days, my already low enthusiasm.

But here I am now, one month later, at the Lao Bao border, while I tend my hand – like a greeting – to a country that has managed to give me so much: fresh climate and smell of pine in Dalat, stormy beaches in Quy Nhon, colours and sweetness in Hoi An, sea flavours in Da Nang, peacefulness in Ninh Binh, intriguing shades and scents in Hanoi, some very exciting and passionate bicycle paths … and above all, several friends.

The meetings with people, as always, make the difference.
Out of rhetoric, if these last 30 days in Vietnam have exceeded my wildest expectations (even without visiting Sapa and Halong), I owe it especially to people.

First to those from home who have been following me via social since a very long time, and every day give me strength to keep going on my own way.

And then to those who have been part of my Vietnam.
Some of them maybe just helped me, welcomed me, had dinner and laughs with me, and some other shared with me moments, hours and even whole days, being able to give me memories and true, intense, happiness.

So: Giacinto, Michela, Virginie, Francisco, Karin, Randy, Han, Trinh, Fulvio, Alex, Vicki & Chris, Katya & Anssi, Suong, Szymon, Kinga, Jorge, Alyssia, Cynthya, Nadine, Jenny, Tho, Phi Phi, Hoa, Davide, Alberto, Le, Romain, Jeremy, Sam, Tarek, Sean, Mario, Camille, Antoinette, Anh, Truc, Bong, Ban, Ly, Alessandro, Martino and Vicki … this greeting and this big THANK YOU, today, are mainly for you!

[ 24 February 2017 ] Lao Bao Border (Vietnam / Laos). 12 am.

STATISTICS VIETNAM
KM on BICYCLE: 720
KM on AUTOBUS: 1570
KM on TRAIN: 880
NIGHTS in HOSTELS: 25
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 4
NIGHTS in TRAIN / AUTOBUS: 2
EXPENSES: 749 €

CURIOSITIES
CURRENCY: Dong
“GOOD DAY”: “Chào buoi sáng”
“THANK YOU”: “Cam On”

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VIETNAM (First Part): Saigon, Da Lat, the Southern Coast and Hoi An (24 January – 10 February)

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So many questions I had that day, as I was quickly and abandoning Cambodia and preparing to cross the border with Vietnam.
How will the traffic in Ho Chi Minh be? And the mountains in Da Lat? Will it be worth pedaling to Nha Trang? What is the “TET” holiday? What about weather forecast for the Southern Coast? Will it really be as beautiful as they say, little Hoi An?
The answers would not be too late to arrive …

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24 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) – Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) | Day 237 🇰🇭 – 🇻🇳
Si sta(va) come d’autunno sugli alberi le foglie.
Ed è subito Vietnam.

[ 24 January 2017 ] Cambodia – Vietnam Border at Moc Bai. 3 pm.

25 January, Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) | Day 238 🇻🇳 – VIDEO
One of the most exciting and life threatening things I’ve ever done in my life:
cycling in Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon)!

 

26 January, Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) | Day 239 🇻🇳
A bit of Shanghai, a bit of Manama, a bit of Calatafimi (but without the beauty of Sicilian hills and of the entire island).
A busy, coarse, noisy, polluted city, where between the major attractions there is a merciless, almost hilarious makeover of Notre Dame Cathedral.
But a city with an important history, even though a tragic one, and an effective, somehow attractive charm.

Is there any beautiful places in Ho Chi Minh City?
No, none at all.
Is there any valuable stories in Ho Chi Minh City?
Yes, many.
Some also you would never like to know about.
But you already know, and so there’s nothing you can do but go for them.

[ 26 January 2017 ] Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam). War Remnants Museum. 4 pm.

27 January, Da Lat (Vietnam) | Day 240 🇻🇳
Does anyone know how to say “Eight Months” in Vietnamese?
Cause I don’t really have a clue.
Anyway today, which is also the last day of the year in China, and around here … yes, I reached the number eight!

So I turned the wheel and tried to give it a name. To whisper a sound that could be different from the confused and confusing Ho Chi Minh.
And it came out a tune which for my ears – and my eyes – sounds as the light song of a robin, hiding solitary in a forest of fir trees, in a fresh spring morning.

Eight months, in Vietnamese, to me is nothing but this: Da Lat.

[ 27 January 2017 ] Da Lat (Vietnam). Xuan Huong Lake. 4,30 pm.

28 January, Da Lat (Vietnam) | Day 241 🇻🇳
In Laos, to reach the waterfalls – especially those of Tad Lo, beautiful ones – you had to walk on slippery muddy paths, there were elephants bathing their trunk and children – as well as young Buddhist monks – who used to spend hours between dives, sketches and laughter, regardless about tomorrow.

In Vietnam, to reach the waterfalls – at least those of Datanla, beautiful ones – you can get there in less than two minutes sitting on mechanical trolleys, saving each type of effort, elephants are replaced by bars and ticket counters, and the noise of playing children by that one of poses and pictures, usually coming from various kind of tourists, regardless about today.

As everyone says here around: same same, but different.

[ 28 January 2017 ] Da Lat (Vietnam). Datanla Waterfalls. 3 pm.

29 January, Da Lat (Vietnam) | Day 242 🇻🇳
“So are you going to try that tomorrow? Da Lat – Nha Trang in one day?”
“Yep.”
“It’s 145 kilometres, you know that? And there are mountains around here, you know that?”
“Yes. But it’s 1500 meters high here, and Nha Trang is on the sea level. It should be also some kind of downhill then.”
“Oh, okay. I bet you prepared everything at perfection today!”
“Oh, yes. You nailed it.”

[ 29 January 2017 ] Da Lat (Vietnam). Xuan Huong Lake. 4 pm.

30 January, Da Lat – Nha Trang (Vietnam) | Day 243 🇻🇳
Da Lat – Nha Trang: 140 kilometers into three, simple parts.

Part 1: leaving the city, playing hide and seek with crazy scooters, exploring some unknown streets during their slow awakening and smiling at an unexpected “ALT!”; then a scenic and tough road; 55 km of evil ups and downs through beautiful valleys, flooded with the “Hello!” coming from thousands of Vietnamese on two wheels and surrounded by mountains, trees and scent of pine cones.

Part 2: reaching the Pass, at 1600 meters, haunted by apocalyptic fog and winter temperatures; then 30 kilometers with 1500 meters of negative slope; an endless and incredible downhill, among waterfalls and dizzying turns, during which I almost didn’t pedal at all, having fun as a kid and remembering all those times I cycled down from Falzarego Pass with dad.

Part 3: plain and villages at the beginning, plain and cities at the end; emerald-green rice fields and then noise and buildings, until the sea; 55 kilometers so easily covered – perhaps because of the adrenaline still vibrant from the downhill – that for a moment I thought I was becoming a superhero. Until I saw an Asian guy, on a loaded bicycle as well, coming from the opposite direction and strongly determined to face those amazing and funny 30 kilometers … but going uphill.

Moral: after seven days or so, here it is, at last … the beauty of Vietnam.
And, after all, the only thing I had to do was to go back on my bicycle.

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31 January, Nha Trang (Vietnam) | Day 244 🇻🇳
In Nha Trang city there are so many Chinese and Russians tourists that seems to be in a suburb of Shanghai or Moscow, Nanjing or Novosibirsk.
The air, however, also due to a cool sea breeze which in the afternoon turns into a mighty wind, remains pleasant and bubbly.

Probably within 10 years it will be devastated by cement and buildings and will end somehow in the grinder someone worships as progress and evolution.
For the moment, however, I can say that Nha Trang is certainly not the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen … but not even the ugliest.

Although here, every time you look at the sea, it’s really hard not to think about the thousands of refugees who for years tried to survive by fleeing across the waves – for this, called “Boat People” – and many of them not even getting close to it.

[ 31 January 2017 ] Nha Trang Bay (Vietnam). 11 am.

1 February, Nha Trang (Vietnam) | Day 245 🇻🇳
It rains in Nha Trang.
There’s the Tet in Nha Trang.

What does it mean?
Basically that:

  1. A) You have nothing to do;
    B) You arrived during a week of celebration due to Chinese Lunar New Year (celebrated here also); ergo, there is no free bed at a reasonable price in any hostel / hotel in the city and everything – even a simple coffee – can reach some kind of crazy price.

So … how to get through the day? How about your plans? And where to sleep?
Well, you can pack up your stuff and start following the flow of what you are not supposed to know.

You can make it up to lunch with Alex and Fulvio, two friendly Italian guys you met yesterday, enjoying pasta and espresso which Alex also fights to offer you.

You can spend another afternoon between laughs and stories with Katya and Anssi, two travelers (a Russian girl and Finnish guy) you met in October in a hostel in a cold polluted Ulaanbaatar – where eventually you were the only customers and you shared adventures and anxieties due to Chinese visa application – who soon became friends and find themselves to be now, by pure coincidence, under the same Vietnamese sky.

You can cycle outside the center to visit Vicki and Chris, a Canadian couple – both travelers since a very long time and temporarily living in Vietnam – you met a few hours earlier through a common friend, which immediately offer you a couch to sleep on for every day you might need and, from the very first moment, share with you all their best smile and their most sincere parental hugs.

So even in the rain, surrounded by tourists and in the middle of unexpected events and solutions to be found … you end up living one of the most intense and pleasant days of your entire journey.
And, as always, because of the people.

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2 February, Quy Nhon (Vietnam) | Day 246 🇻🇳
“Pedaling along the central coast or in Northern Vietnam is an experience which definetely should not be missed,” I must have read somewhere.

Just too bad that in central Vietnam it has been raining incessantly for almost two months now, and the North is still far far away.
Quite funny that at this time I could still be on the white beaches of beautiful Koh Rong island …

[ 2 February 2017 ] Quy Nhon (Vietnam). The Beach. 5 pm.

3 February, Quy Nhon (Vietnam) | Day 247 🇻🇳
Among other things, impossible to put in a picture:

– there’s a gentle wind that whirls the handlebars when you cycle too fast;
– no cake or candy stores in all Quy Nhon, or at least I didn’t find one;
– right there, a few meters behind me, the speakers of a beach bar were playing opera tunes continuously … including an endless and merciless clarinet-remake of Beethoven’s “Für Elise”;
– They say they’ve spotted a couple of sharks in the waters not far from here, just beyond the brown waves.

Ah, how beautiful.

[ 3 February 2017 ] Quy Nhon (Vietnam). Somewhere in the storm. 2 pm.

4 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 248 🇻🇳
What do you ask to the guys working at the reception of your new hostel, after half a day’s journey by bus to leave Quy Nhon’s grey rain, after a sweet lazy nap and an afternoon awakening surprisingly coloured by the sun?

“Excuse me, can you tell me which is the best place in town … to sip slowly a cold beer and to see the sunset?”

Cause it is maybe since your days in Laos that you are not able to see a complete one.
And cause Hoi An, even if apparently beautiful, can also wait.

[ 4 February 2017 ] Hoi An (Vietnam). Song Thu Bon River. 5 pm.

5 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 249 🇻🇳
In Picture A you can see:
– A mother holding her child, amused and at the same time frightened by the waves, infusing him strength and courage;
– A child reassuring his mother, holding her hand with a proud and free look into the unknown;
– Hoi An Beach;
– The angry sea of ​​Vietnam;
– The third largest city in the country, Da Nang.

In Picture B you can see: Uncle Vietnam.

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6 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 250 🇻🇳
I read and quote a guide book:
“Graceful, historic Hoi An is Vietnam’s most atmospheric and delightful town. Once a major port, it boasts the grand architecture and beguiling riverside setting that befits its heritage, and the 21st-century curses of traffic and pollution are almost entirely absent.
The face of the Old Town has preserved its incredible legacy of tottering Japanese merchant houses, Chinese temples and ancient tea warehouses – though, of course, residents and rice fields have been gradually replaced by tourist businesses. Lounge bars, boutique hotels, travel agents and a glut of tailor shops are very much part of the scene here.”

True.
Very rarely I’ve seen such a high concentration of tourism all packed literally in a handful of streets; maybe just Venice, Prague and superfake Lijiang Old Town in China reached the same or a bigger level.

However, today, as I was wandering slow and lazy between the choreographic streets of Hoi An, I didn’t meet any kind of discomfort or uneasiness, and nor even that craving for seclusion I usually feel in these kind of situations.

And if you look patiently at these colors, I’m pretty sure the reason is not hard to be found.

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7 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 251 🇻🇳
It was supposed to be the last day in Hoi An, so I decided – after looking at the sun, the heat and the blue sky – to spend it by the sea, along the beach I had visited two days ago.
No wind, warm and welcoming sea, palm trees and coconuts all around and a noodles with shrimp dish (for 3$) which came out to be an imperial lust.

All very nice.
Until a furious wave decided to ambush and cover me completely – with all my stuff – while I was lying on the shore after a usual postprandial attack.
The fact that I had left the phone out of the backpack where it usually is, switched off immediately my instinctive laugh.

The device is still working, but somehow damaged and the battery is dead (this post comes from my laptop) … ergo, useless.
One more day in Hoi An to try to fix it, excluding miracles, will be a must.

Therefore today’s two considerations are:
– That’s what happens when you squeeze a nap in front of a sea you don’t know what kind of tides may have;
– Being “disconnected” for a little while, after long time, will be some kind of unexpected, funny and somehow forgotten … imperial lust.

[ 7 February 2017 ] Hoi An (Vietnam). The Beach. 11 am.

8 February, Hoi An (Vietnam) | Day 252 🇻🇳
5 pm: the first picture in this journey … I took with my smartphone.
Like a brand new one, apparently, with my big surprise.
Ready to leave beautiful Hoi An.

[ 8 February 2017 ] Hoi An (Vietnam). Old Town. 5 pm.

9 February, Da Nang (Vietnam) | Day 253 🇻🇳
When is supposed to start raining again and for a whole week?
When I decide to go back on my bicycle.
Vietnam, I love you sooooooo much too!

[ 9 February 2017 ] Da Nang (Vietnam). Beach Promenade. 2 pm.

10 February, Da Nang (Vietnam) | Day 254 🇻🇳
Easy to be seen, in this photo:
a) the Colorful Dragon of Da Nang
b) the famous Bridge, symbol of the city

[ 10 February 2017 ] Da Nang (Vietnam). Dragon Bridge. 12 am.
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CAMBODIA: Phnom Penh and Koh Rong Island (11 – 23 January)

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Closing the wonderful “Laos Chapter“, the descent continued to the land of the ancient Khmer Empire.
Perhaps because I was still too dazzled by Laos’s surprises, perhaps because the first impact – in a chaotic Phnom Penh and in the terrible recent history of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge – had been distressing or simply perhaps because I was starting to suffer the terrible heat of Southeast Asia (which I tried to soothe for a few days on the beautiful Koh Rong island) … but, unfortunately, Cambodia didn’t know how to give me what I was looking for and I was not able to find what I needed at that time of the journey.
Only 13 days, and then I left  for Vietnam.
Primising myself, however, that one day … I would be back.

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11 January, Don Det (Laos) –  Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 224  🇱🇦 ➡
With almost 600 km on my bicycle – between the mountains of the North, Luang Prabang, Phonsavan and Vientiane surroundings, the plateau near Pakse and the long, arid roads close to the Mekong in the South of the country – Laos becomes officially, and with no dispute, the country in which I pedaled the most, since the day I left.

On the last day I could choose to perform some new 100 km, to cross the border with Cambodia on the saddle and to search for a bed in a place called Stung Treng, or to jump on a bus up to Siem Reap, or Phnom Penh.
Considering that is crazy hot, that I like to shuffle things and that Stung Treng, as a name, only evoked some hard painful beatings … I went for the last, easy, option.
Phnom Penh.

At the border, when also all my luggages remained inside the bus belly and I walked down – together with a bunch of backpackers in sunglasses and flipflops – to handle with the usual formalities you should go through when you exit a country, I recalled with a smile all those exhausting controls I had to overcome to leave Russia, Mongolia and China.

In this part of the world, instead, it seems that nobody really cares about who you are, why you are here, and what you are travelling with.To exit Laos, in this case at Veun Kham border, you just pay $2 and you can say whatever you want to got your farewell stamp.

Even that you are a famous skater from Lichtenstein and that your name is Wilson, with no surname, exactly like the caps brand of which you are either the super talented founder and super rich president.

[ 11 January 2017 ] Laos – Cambodia land border. 12 am.

12 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 225  🇰🇭
Important history, colorful markets where you pay in Dollars but they give you back Cambodian Rials, oozing smells, wild traffic, Khmer statues, football and volleyball pitches everywhere, lights, construction sites, terrible buildings, burning heat, ponds, rivers, dirt, chaos, hidden oasis of peace, street kiosks mixed with Buddhist altars filled with flowers and incense.

And again, people cutting hair next to people repairing motorcycles, people playing, people working, people begging, people selling, people shouting, people asking you if you look for smoke or girls, people getting married in a bar, people washing their kids on the river promenade, people playing cards all day, people dancing or jogging, people laughing on their flashy cars and people living on their rusty tuk tuk.

A mother who carries a garbage cart and joyful smiles at you when she walks by your side, while her daughter – incredibly beautiful, and without an arm – hugs her shyly while looking at you as pure, sweet and happy as only a child could be.

This, my first day in Phnom Penh.
As I read today in a guide, a city “on the edge of everything”, which can infuse you with wild optimism at the genuine sense of limitless possibilities, or knock you down with crushing cynicism in less than a heartbeat.
And about me … well, in all this, I really didn’t understand a thing.

So, not being an expert, I wore an orange tissue, found two monks to become friend and to talk with before sunset, observed a funny guy, arrived on a bicycle, who was taking a picture of me, and, for a while, I tried to show him all my distress, my concern and my strong, but still charitable, spiritual disappointment.

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13 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 226  🇰🇭
If you are in Phnom Penh, and Cambodia in general, you can not – and it wouldn’t even be right – stay away from the recent, tragic, history of this country.

A military and dictatorial regime, controlled by a few “chosen ones”, which tried to introduce in these land some kind of Utopia State, based on farm work and self-sufficiency, and which, to do so, in less than 4 years (from 1975-1978) deleted from their own country one third of the population and damaged the lives of the survivors and their descendants forever.

A story of merciless forced labour, destruction of industrial economy, money, universities, markets, schools, all kinds of worship, individuality and human dignity in general.

Today, visiting the Prison – Torture Camp S21 and the famous “Killing Fields”, I could face an inhuman reality, made of abuses, sadic tortures and slaughters that even a monsters from the most perverse fantasies couldn’t perhaps reach; in front of the tree used by the executioners to smash the heads of newborn babies (yes, it’s obscene, I know … but it’s really what it happened and it is useless to hide it, although I prefer not to publish photos), now coloured with petals and bracelets, I felt for a moment the earth shaking, and I didn’t faint only by chance.

I probably spent five hours in total between the two museums, and could now tell dozens of different stories and horrors.
But there is one that affected me particularly, due to its fatal tragedy and its incredible – although hidden – message of hope, which stole me a glimmer of joy in the midst of a very gloomy day.

It’s about a guy from New Zealand, Kerry Hamill, who could eventually have been myself – if only I had been born thirty years before – or simply could have been my father, or any of us.

A normal boy and a dreamer, like many others, that in 1978, aged 27, decided to leave for a long trip by boat around the Asian coasts.
Fate brought him and his two friends, because of a storm, to seek shelter on an island in South Cambodia.
They were discovered by the Khmer Rouge and immediately transferred to Phnom Penh, where they were imprisoned in the S21, accused of being spies for the CIA or KGB.
One of them soon died, the other two were tortured and had to confess their absurd guilt.
Kerry Hamill was executed (as well as thousands of Cambodians and foreigners of different nationalities) for crimes he never committed, and for years his family didn’t know anything about him, nor his end.

When, in recent years, some secret archives of the Khmer Rouge were found and opened, Kerry’s confession was read for the first time.

Even if he was facing the end of his days, Kerry admitted he was a CIA spy, but didn’t lose his desire to dream and to continue to smile at life.
He quoted Colonel Sanders (founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken) as his supervisor, Sergeant Pepper (from the famous Beatles album) as his first superior, greeted his closest friends and relatives one by one, noting on a sheet all their names and selecting them as his partners in action, mentioned his home number as its direct one for the CIA, and he finally smiled at his only instructor and mentor, citing the unusual name of S Tarr.

It was nothing but a final, unconditional message of love and hope towards a woman, eventually named Esther.
His mother.

[ 13 January 2017 ] Phnom Penh (Cambodia). The Killing Fields. 3 pm.

14 January, Koh Rong (Cambodia) | Day 227  🇰🇭
After yesterday, emotionally a very tough day, I had a great desire to go and lose myself for a while between some lonely valley, river and mountain cabin.
The mountains that I like, however, are thousands of kilometers far away from where I am.
So I thought that, after months since the last time, I could also get to see something else I started to miss a lot.
And that can always say something, no matter where.
The sea.

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15 January, Koh Rong (Cambodia) | Day 228  🇰🇭
The negative side of island villages which face the East (such as Kastro, in Sifnos, and the only village in Koh Rong, where I am since last night) is that they remain covered, when the sun is setting down.

But the positive side, though, it is that if you wake up early, there’s basically noone else apart from you.
And there’s only one thing you can do.
Turn your eyes to a new day, while, silent and undisturbed, is slowly being born.
And you, with it.

[ 15 January 2017 ] Koh Rong (Cambodia). 6,30 am.

16 January, Koh Rong (Cambodia) | Day 229  🇰🇭
I’ll be sincere.
Although I decided to reach an island to face a period of natural fatigue due to the heat of this part of the world and to the many months of solitary travelling, I cannot say that Koh Rong caught me completely.

Maybe because there are no infrastructure on the island – which is a very good thing though – and then, with all my weights, I was forced to find a Guesthouse not far from the small, chaotic pier, dripping dirt, tourists and alcohol.
One of those you would have seen in the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”, we could say.

Today, however, I tried to explore a bit more and to change perspective.
And I must confess that my opinion, about the island, totally changed.

[ 16 January 2017 ] Koh Rong (Cambodia). Lonely Beach. 3 pm.

17 January, Koh Rong (Cambodia) | Day 230 🇰🇭
I didn’t catch any rain since the day I arrived (and left after less than three hours) in Kunming, China, on my way to Lijiang.
It was late November.
More than a month and a half without a single drop … and when does the very total storm decide to hit me?

After walking almost two hours in the middle of the jungle in a Cambodian island, trying to avoid falls and snakes, after having a foretaste, lying in the hammock, of a possible special afternoon and an incredible sunset, and after walking on the sand of what is perhaps the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen in my life.
After Plaka one, in Naxos, of course.

Murphy’s law or a blasting and unpredictable natural pyrotechnic show?
Anyway, a new reason to spend a few more days in Koh Rong island.
Fair enough.

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18 January, Koh Rong (Cambodia) | Day 231 🇰🇭
After yesterday’s 2 hours in a Cambodian jungle, a furious storm, a sudden escape and a lost sunset, today the wind has changed.
And the weather with it.

Then it happened that in the morning, shortly after breakfast, someone told me that to reach Long Beach they have built, recently, even a dirt road that runs along the island for 5 km, easily doable by bicycle.

So I took it, and went to fulfil my spirit with the missing part I had to leave, yesterday, as I don’t like to leave things undone.
And I don’t think it was a bad choice.

[ 18 January 2017 ] Koh Rong (Cambodia). Long Beach. 5,30 pm.

19 January, Koh Rong (Cambodia) | Day 232 🇰🇭
Waking up for the sixth day in a row on a tropical island, stoned by 40 degrees outside and 38 – due to fever – of your head.
Spending a slow and horizontal morning, under a fan, book in hand and orange juice by your side.
Walking up to a lonely beach, looking for a bench or a hammock.
Finding a swing in the middle of the sea.
Swinging for about an hour, feeling slowly your energies coming back.
Being astonished, once again, for how beautiful these places can be.
Falling in love indefinitely.
Understanding that, however, they are clearly not meant for you, and that, reluctantly, it’s time to leave.

[ 19 January 2017 ] Koh Rong (Cambodia). Police Beach. 1 pm.

20 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 233 🇰🇭
I came back to Phnom Penh.
After 2 hours on a boat and 6 on a bus, still feverish and terribly low, I’m back in the colorful, effervescent and smelling bedlam of the capital of Cambodia.
Nothing interesting, therefore, today.
Really nothing interesting.

Then it’s time to publish some more photographs of the island that partly enchanted me and from which – right now I cannot understand why – I wanted to escape.
Not really because I like to go through images of the place I was in and think again about the sound of the sea in the various, beautiful beaches of Koh Rong.
But rather to remind myself of the asshole I am.

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21 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 234 🇰🇭
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
8:30 pm.
It’s time to set foot outside the hostel, today, for the first time.
And just because I’m hungry.

After Trump’s establishment at the White House, the news all the TV were impatiently waiting for.
Cause well, yes, flu is over.
And I’m back in the game.

[ 21 January 2017 ] Phnom Penh (Cambodia). Aura Hostel, in the Hall. 8,30 pm.

22 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 235 🇰🇭

LIGHTS ON KOH RONG: ADVENTURE ADAM

Adventure Adam

23 January, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) | Day 236 🇰🇭
I didn’t understand a thing.
Hard for me to admit it, but that’s it.
I really didn’t understand a thing.
About Cambodia, I mean.

Maybe because, after spending such a good time in sleepy Laos, I had too high expectations or too many preclusions.
But that’s a fact: the anxiety that I felt from the very first day in Phnom Penh – and not only cause I visited the Killing Fields and S21 – has never really gone away.

Maybe I just had to cycle more across the country, but it is also true that the climate of this part of the world – of what now seems to me, looking at the map of the globe, to be the torrid and suffocating udder of the giant Euro-Asian cow – never really stimulated me to do so.

In recent days, due to the heat and a bit of fever, I spent more than half of my time in supine position, and the remaining hours just walking lost in the overloaded streets, with the same speed I could take as if someone had cemented my knees and tied my ankles before.

I could jump on my bicycle and force myself into some distant hill, or move towards the history of Battambang, the magic of Angkor Wat or the warm coast of Kampot. But the heat – and indecision – took me over.

I tried to “find a way” among palm trees and waves in Koh Rong, but I did not succeed.
Anxiety and indecision remained and had the best of me.

Last night I threw a coin, as I always do when I don’t know which direction I should take. But while it was still hovering in the air and was already about halfway to touch the ground, I locked it tight in my fist, without waiting for the choice.
I was able to determine, at that very moment only, that the only thing I really had to do was to clean the table.

I know I’m making a mistake, my sweet Cambodia.
I know I just should give you more time, my dear Cambodia.
I know you could still give me a lot, my old Cambodia.
And you are also so damn beautiful, my old, dear and sweet Cambodia.

But not now.
Another time, maybe.
It’s not under your sky that I will sleep, tomorrow.
Even if I know already that a part of me … will regret it forever.

[ 23 January 2017 ] Phnom Penh (Cambodia). Tonle Sap promenade. 5 pm.

STATISTICS CAMBODIA
KM on BICYCLE: 80
KM on AUTOBUS: 1225
KM on TRAIN: 0
NIGHTS in HOSTELS: 13
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 0
EXPENSES: 370 €

CURIOSITIES
CURRENCY: Riel / Dollar
“GOOD DAY”: “suostei”
“THANK YOU”: “arkoun”

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LAOS (Second Part): Tad Lo, Champasak, the Mekong and Don Det Island (1 – 10 January)

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If, regarding the month I spent in Laos, the first part had been surprising, the second one … well … would have been even more.

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1 January, Tad Lo (Laos) | Day 214 🇱🇦
The 1st of January, for me, has always meant only one thing.
Another one of those habits I have unconsciously learned from my father and grandfather, and that every year I’m waiting almost with trepidation.
13 o’clock (or perhaps 14), Rai 1 (Italian Channel): New Year’s Concert.

But today I didn’t wake up in Italy, and so I chose not to tune in on any TV set and, instead, to pedal.
Up to Tad Lo waterfalls, in Southern Laos.

A dawn without a cloud behind Pakse’s mountains, my Wiener Philharmoniker’s Overture.
90 km of virtuous ups and downs on the national roads No. 16 and 20, my Musik Verein and my Johann Strauss Sr and Johann Strauss Jr.
A striking wind and a biting sun, my usual Peppi Franzelin’s voice.
A bicycle and vigorous sweat, my Lorin Maazel and Claudio Abbado.
The afternoon descent to Bolaven plateau, my “An der schönen blauen Donau”.
Street children and orange monks under the water, my crazy “Radetzky-Marsch”.
A well-deserved dive and some final resting in the bungalow hammock in front of the waterfalls, my final neverending applause.

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2 January, Tad Lo (Laos) | Day 215 🇱🇦
After all the big effort to reach them yesterday, today I enjoyed ’em to the bone.
From dawn till dusk.
Tad Lo waterfalls.

Yes, because there are waterfalls in Tad Lo.
It seems that almost only the locals know about it, because there are very few foreigners around.

Maybe because Tad Lo waterfalls are quite far from Laos more traditional tourist circuits.
Or maybe because they are just nothing special.

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3 January, Tad Lo (Laos) | Day 216 🇱🇦
To wake up from a sweet sleep and to observe lights reflections on the river in front of the bungalow for the last time.
To prepare to return to Pakse.
To read the message from a friend while you are having breakfast, which suggests you to spend an extra day at Tad Lo and walk to the nearby valleys.
To choose to listen to the advice, while you are watching an elephant bathing in front of your coffee cup.
To start walking, random, towards a mountain, while it’s still morning.
To meet, at a crossroad, Max, a 27 year old Germam guy who came here from his home on a motorcycle, and offers you a ride to the top, where the view is stunning.
To accept it and chat with someone who seems to be yourself a few years ago and immediately becomes a friend.
To walk back to the valley with your own legs and refresh in a pool where children are playing with mud.
To get lost in the Laotian vegetation, under a burning sun, for more than an hour.
To come across a kid who smiles because he knows you got lost and offers to bring you back to Tad Lo in exchange for some “money!”.
Kindly, to dick him over.
To listen to the call of the river and try to track down the way by your own … cause you are not lost in the Gobi desert.
To arrive in a village which is forgotten by God, where people don’t seem to care too much about it and sleep, or drink, or smoke, or dance, or sing, or play with a monkey. Above all, they laugh.
To find the river you needed and tighten your fist up to the sky, calling the victory.
To embrace the waterfall where you started from, looking at it under a new perspective.
To lose yourself in its reflections, once again, and then again, and over and over again.

Your weird, imponderable, January 3rd.

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4 January, Pakse (Laos) | Day 217 🇱🇦
I just realized now that I didn’t load the last three pictures of yesterday’s post.
One of a monkey, one of the river found again after getting lost … and then the final one, Tad Lo waterfalls South, seen in a new light.

So I post it today.
Either because I came back to Pakse, it’s damn hot and the only thing I could photograph is a BeerLao bottle.
Either because it was nice.
I think.

[ 3 January 2017 ] Tad Lo Waterfalls South (Laos). 3 pm.

5 January, Champasak (Laos) | Day 218 🇱🇦
If yesterday I remained silent – with stories and pictures, enough to make me feel like useless – today I went back cycling.
And, as always, when I decide to do it, things happen.

The “plan”, yesterday, was to arrive in some way to the so-called “4000 islands”, an apparently pleasant and unmissable place on the border between Laos and Cambodia.
I was about to book a bus from Pakse, when I thought that I could also cover 180 km by bicycle, in a couple of days.
But, as always, I was haunted by questions:
– How will the road be?
– And the heat?
– Will it be worth enough?
– Will I find a place to sleep?

A lucky meeting from last night, however, gave me a help: “Maybe you can cross the Mekong and ride on the other side for some kilometers. They say Champasak is a beautiful village to stop. And then there is Wat Phou nearby. It is a UNESCO site, you know? Maybe it’s not that bad either”.

I decided to overcome my doubts, and to forget about my questions.
So just starting like this, basically with a jump into the unknown, I gave myself the chance to experience:

– four hours of easy and very hot pedaling;
– a five-minutes dream in front of the swimming pool of a resort, due to a cost misunderstanding with the receptionist;
– a Guesthouse in Champasak set in an idyllic atmosphere, where for one-twentieth of the resort cost I have my own huge private pool, overlooking the Bolaven plateau … the Mekong;
– an afternoon in a temple from the Khmer empire I even didn’t know it existed, which along with Angkor Wat and My Son represents a masterpiece of humanity, where for two hours I lose myself in unexpected views, unbearable beauties and immortal silences;
– a last free dive in the Mekong, facing, again, the sun setting behind Bolaven;
– one of the most intense and surprising days my memory can remember.

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6 January, Ban Boungkeo (Laos) | Day 219 🇱🇦
Quick and painless.

I started very early this morning.
At 8 it was pretty cool.
At 11 I was boiling under the heat.
After 40 kms, I found a village.
I tried to reach the river.
To swim.
While I was breathing under a palm tree along the Mekong, some guys offered me a drink.
We started talking.
They were funny, as well as their children.
Those kinds of natural languages.
They offered me to stay for the night.
It was still super hot.
I accepted.
So tonight I’ll sleep on the ground with 5 Laotian kids.
In a place that really exists.
It’s called Ban Boungkeo.

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7 January, Ban Boungkeo – Don Det (Laos) | Day 220 🇱🇦
A moved goodbye to the family that hosted me in Ban Boungkeo, shortly after dawn.
15 kms of dirt road and palm trees along the Mekong, lulled by the morning breeze.
A silent boat, with a young gentle Charon, to cross a little river.
20 kms of dirt road again, bridges, palm trees and hot sun, trying not to stumble on kids shouting Sabeydee, and then chickens, cows, dogs and pigs.
A new boat crossing, to arrive on the eastern side of the Mekong.
50 kms of straight boring and depressing paved road, slapped for hours by the sun.
All of this to get to the third small pier and being carried, exhausted and burned, on the island where everyone here – so it seems – wants to go to.
The island where I will probably stay for a few days, living it and experiencing it little by little, because the first signs, honestly … just call for it.
Don Det.

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8 January, Don Det (Laos) | Day 221 🇱🇦
It was a long time ago since I stayed on an island for the last time.
It was Olkhon, Russia, in September, if my memory doesn’t fool me.
Before that, during this journey, there was Sifnos, in August (during my “Greek holiday”), and before that Vir, Croatia … to meet my friend Jiri Oliva, and then new friends Ida, Kuba, Michal, Jana and her two sons.

It was still June.
I had just started.
It is January now.
2017.
And I’m on Don Det Island, in Mekong River, in southern Laos, near the border with Cambodia.

It blew me away.
This fact of the island, I mean.
Being on a few-hundreds-meters strip of land, even if surprisingly charming and intriguing, left me puzzled for a moment.
Having boundaries, natural barriers to keep me away from any single free road, is a feeling that for some time left me almost stoned.

But then I remembered the great experience I had gained on the Cycladic coasts, last year, and how well I had learned how to live without rhythms, time, anxieties and possible escapes from any kind of idleness.
Then I tried to dust off the memories of those days, trying to recover the uses I had so much appreciated in the archipelago.
A beach, a long bath, a boat, and privileged view of the day itself, alone, slowly sinking down.

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9 January, Don Det (Laos) | Day 222 🇱🇦
I always feel quite disappointed when you need to pay an entrance fee to see something that is not a human work, but a simple – though overwhelming – natural masterpiece.
In this case the entrance was also only a few meters from the show itself, and I could hear the roar from afar.

So I looked for alternative ways, like a river crossing, or a boat or a kayak … but nothing.
The forest was hiding, the water closing the way.

Then, when I found myself in front of Tad Somphamit (or Li Phi) waterfalls, I understood why there were no river crossings whatsoever.
And that, basically, I did well not to get there with a boat … or a kayak.

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10 January, Don Det (Laos) | Day 223 🇱🇦
Although, according to my visa, I could spend three more days here in Laos, I decided that this would be the last.

Four nights on an island in the South refreshed me a lot, but I feel that it’s time to change.
To get back on the road again.
To see what else can happen, in the future.

From tomorrow, however.
Today, leaving my bicycle locked in a garden, I decided to move as many locals do, perhaps out of necessity or perhaps cause they simply love taking it slow.
On foot.

I had no desire to talk.
With nobody. Not even with myself.
Partly because I didn’t know what to say.
And partly because I was busy with something else.
To look, at Laos, for the last time.

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STATISTICS LAOS

KM on BICYCLE: 690
KM on AUTOBUS: 1425
NIGHTS in HOSTELS: 25
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 1
NIGHTS in BUS: 1
EXPENSES: 751 €

CURIOSITIES
CURRENCY: Kip
“GOOD DAY”: “Sabaidee”
“THANK YOU”: “khàwp jai lai lai”

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MAP

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LAOS (First Part): the North, Luang Prabang, Phonsavan and Vientiane (15 – 31 December)

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After two months in China, Southeast Asia finally arrived.
Leaving behind me one of the world’s largest Nations, once I came to Boten border I thought that the land I was facing would be short, simple, and far from being surprising.
Well, never before I had been so wrong.
On December 15th, I set foot for the first time in a country I didn’t know anything about and that would have been, for a month, day after day, nothing but astonishing: Laos.

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15 December, China- Laos border | Day 197 🇨🇳 – 🇱🇦
After all the troubles to enter Russia, Mongolia and China, here everything went very smooth and fast.
At Boten border control, you show up, fill out a form, pay 35$ and yes, after 5 minutes you have a visa for 30 days.

I officially attacked with a yellow little tank the territory that on the Risiko table is just below China and is called Siam.
Not as warm as I thought, but I’m sure things are going to change pretty soon.

I really don’t know what is going to happen, but the first impressions are great.
Although the first thing that was waiting for me on the other side, was a burning forest.
Wonderful start.

[ 15 December 2016 ] Boten Border Control (Laos). 4 pm.

16 December, Luang Namtha (Laos) | Day 198 🇱🇦
Since the day I left, my Brompton was an almost perfect traveling companion: it drove me through half of Europe, slept silently with me on the Trans-Siberian Railway, brought me to discover, in complete autonomy, Russian cities, Mongolian valleys and Chinese secrets.
In recent weeks, however, it has suddenly turned into a problem.
Difficult to be moved in China, victim of three punctures in a little more than 10 days and far from easy sources of supply stocks.
After the last puncture, I also almost thought to send it back to Italy and continue only with a backpack.

I had just spent a wonderful day along Dali Lake, where I stopped for dinner after sunset.
On the way back, in the dark, I don’t see a hole. Forward wheel completely dry in 10 seconds.
5 km from Dali and surrounded by total darkness, certainly I’m not spending the best 5 minutes of my life.
As I start walking all the way back to the hostel, I spot a car into the street. I stop it.
A Chinese family, despite not knowing a single word of English, understands my problem and does its best to take me to my place, following my simple digital signs.
I feel a bit better.

Once back to the hostel, however, I try to think about my situation:
– Front tyre = almost gone
– Spare inner tubes left = 0
– Closest Brompton shops in Chengdu, Bangkok and Shanghai (like saying that you’re in Milan and the nearest shops are in Paris, Berlin and Oslo)
– Chances to order online almost impossible (only Chinese sites operate in China, more or less, my visa expires in 4 days and I cannot certainly go to Chengdu or wait in Dali)

I leave it to the next day, and soon after being back to my hostel I meet two Dutch guys and three French girls who invite me to have a beer with them.
“Sorry, guys, but I don’t feel like. I just got back and I feel quite low. I think I’ll take a shower and then go to sleep.” – I say exhausted.
“Ok, no worries! If you change your mind, we will be at Bad Monkey pub, 10 minutes walk from here!” – They smile.
As I finish my shower, I feel a bit better.
I’m dying for a beer and I remember that the French girls are also pretty good looking.
“Why not?” – I say myself.

Within 20 minutes I’m at the Bad Monkey pub, but the guys are not there. I will never see them again.
The beer is great anyhow and the live music also, so I stay there until midnight.
Shortly before leaving like Cinderella, a big boy with dread and leather jacket asks me, just the moment I step off the bar, where I come from.
I don’t really feel like starting the usual speech, especially to one guy I would not even give a penny, but I answer reluctantly.
The guy, though, proves in a short time to be extremely pleasant, intelligent and interesting.

I’m not able to guess his age, but his name is Carl.
He says he is half Scottish and half Jamaican, that he speak Chinese, Vietnamese and Laotian and that he is the owner of four bars, including one in Jamaica and three in Asia.
The Bad Monkey is one of these.
My eyes suddenly fall on a poster at the entrance and, actually, there he is: Carl and his partner – another boy with dread and leather jacket – like two Easy Riders on silver motorcycles.
He gives me his number and tells me to come back the next day, because the Bad Monkey’s pizza deserves and because he can help me with the inner tubes.
“But in the afternoon. I’ve no idea how many beers I’ll have tonight and therefore when I’ll wake up.”– Carl warns me.

So, the next day, I spend the morning in a bicycle shop.
Jeffrey – a friendly and helpful Chinese man whose name is not Jeffrey (as he says) for sure, but who speaks English and so for me remains Jeffrey – helps me for a couple of hours. He fixes a brand new inner tube on the front wheel (even if with a different size and only as a temporary solution) and manages to repair the holes of the old one.
After 3 o’clock, then, I’m back to the Bad Monkey.
The pizza is really good and Carl respects his word: showing off a quite enviable mastery of Mandarin, he orders on TaoBao (a sort of huge Chinese Amazon) 4 inner tubes and an Express delivery from Beijing.

“Where do you want them to be delivered, my friend?”
“Well, Carl, tomorrow I get on a bus to Jinghong, but I don’t know where I’m staying. Can you maybe suggest me a hostel there?”
“No, bro. But I have a friend who runs a bar in Jinghong. What about sending them there?”
“Ok, but can we make it in 3 days? I mean, the distance Beijing – Jinghong is like the one you have between Moscow and Rome … and my visa expires on December 15th.”
“No worries, mate. You’re in China. Nothing is shipped in more than three days here. Not even a bridge.”

Two days later – on December 13th – I order hamburger with fries at MeiMei Jinghong bar.
The 4 inner tubes have already arrived.
In less than 30 hours I got a brand new inner tube fixed and 5 spare tubes.
I’m back to the stars.
And that’s how my Brompton came, first by bus and then by tuk tuk, to Luang Namtha, in Laos, and flied with me on the first Laotian streets of this trip, where children of a rare beauty kept on greeting me as if I was a sort of bald Archangel Gabriel.

Here it is, like new.
My tiny 2-wheeled-Zeppelin to freedom.
My personal lime-green-Bucephalus towards the conquest of Siam.

Tomorrow I will go back to pedal, South – West.
180 km between mountains and valleys to reach Houayxay City.
No idea if I’ll close them in 2 or 3 days, but it doesn’t matter.
I’m excited and I really want to start again.
After all, I came here for this.
“To pedal in CochinChina!” – as I said to my grandfather, a few days before I left.

“Get ready to dance, Alice, for from there over you’ll see the true Wonders!” – a friend warned me yesterday.
And I feel ready, or almost.
I just hope no Queens of Hearts will rain on my head.
Or Carroll’s devilish and colourful Mome Raths.

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17 December, Vieng Phouka (Laos) | Day 199 🇱🇦
I slept badly last night. A little, and badly.
Even if it’s already a long time I’m on this journey, the idea of ​​going back to ride my bicycle in a new and totally unfamiliar country, I don’t know how, spoiled my sleep.
When this morning, around 9, I started riding towards the mountains surrounding Luang Namtha, my legs were gripped by cold and restlessness.
It’s true that I did 180 km, in Hungary, only in one day … but Laos is not Hungary, and I knew already that I should have cut the stage to Houayxay (180 km, indeed) in at least two tranches. And this very thought, absurdly, weighed on me.

But I still had to begin.

I still had to experience the Laotian uphills, those that nail you down and force you to get off and push on your feet.
I still had to meet Tim, an English cyclist from Manchester, who reminded me that the beauty of cycle traveling is to “take it easy, following your rhythm and instinct”.
I still had to run into a village where I stopped to let children play with my bicycle.
I still had to find a river where I wanted to jump in at once, cause you know I cannot resist to certain things.
I still had to get out of the river and see 5 guys, sitting in the shade a few meters from where I swum, photographing me, plucking a duck and preparing a picnic, where I was invited for a couple of hours.
I still had to take a nap under the sun, to recover from the beer, while people of all ages came to the river to wash themselves.
I still had to start slowly on roads surrounded by the jungle, where traffic is 10 times smaller than the number of animals and 100 times smaller than the number of “hello” and smiles of the children.
I still had to get to Vieng Phouka village much later than expected, and decide to stay in a small room / hut in a Guesthouse waiting for the night and the new day.
And I still had to walk to the village and to be challenged at soccer by a bunch of local kids, cause you know I cannot resist to certain things.

Not 180, nor 120 and nor even 90 km.
Only 60.
But still enough to make my legs stop from shaking, and to make me already understand clearly how wonderful this country is.

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18 December, Houayxay (Laos) | Day 200 🇱🇦
Then the twohundredth day comes, and, with it, a big challenge.
122 kilometers were between me and Houayxay this morning, and so I decided to challenge Laos. And myself.
122 kilometers during which I counted. Counted a lot.

10 hours, at least 2 walking and pushing my bicycle on uphills graded with Bulgarian percentages.
14 Grand Prix of the Mountain.
2 Grand Prix of the Himalayas, which gave me hand-pain due to fury pushing on the handlebar while going up, and using brakes while going down.
3 coca cola, 2 polase, 1 apple, 2 bananas, 20 biscuits, 50 chips.
Thirty villages, all or almost starting with Ban or Phuong.
238 “Hello!” by children and people of all ages (yes, I counted them … to keep my mind engaged, somehow, not to collapse).
A single sun, which crashed me down to earth during the day, but which also, at the end, moving away, gave me views of a country I thought I could dream about only in fairy tales.
Hundreds of mountains, a single river: the Mekong, again, while I was closing the last hour overwhelmed by the dark and the shimmering lights were welcoming me.

So we can say: Laos won, definitely.
The road, today, destroyed me.
But I didn’t lose because, even if I lifted the level so disproportionately and suffered it to the bone, I made it.
I’m too tired to be happy now, but I made it.

Physically one of the hardest and most complicated days I have ever experienced. But also one of the most satisfying.

PS: the selfie was after the first Grand Prix of the Himalayas, long before I discovered what the day set apart for me.
PS2: tomorrow I’ll faint on a boat.

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19 December, Pakbeng (Laos) | Day 201 🇱🇦
Waking up in the clouds and fog.
Reaching Houayxay harbour to pack the bicycle on the roof of a wooden boat.
Spending an entire day floating on the Mekong.
Remaining dazed until sunset, docking at Pakbeng village.

I could write more, but – as I did already last year for Kofounissi – today I’ll let some pictures speak for me.
Also because tomorrow there will be the second stage on waters. A second day on the Mekong.
Up to Luang Prabang.

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20 December, on the Mekong (Laos) | Day 202 🇱🇦 – VIDEO
Second day floating on the river.
Mekong in slow slow slow … very slow motion !

21 December, Luang Prabang (Laos) | Day 203 🇱🇦
After two days of cycling and 2 on boat, today I choose to do nothing but walking.
Far and wide, in Luang Prabang. The wonderful Luang Prabang, I might add.

After the “less packed” Russia, Mongolia and China, however, I have to start admitting seriously to myself that I arrived in one of the most touristic areas of the world.
Once I climbed to the top of Phou Si Mountain to watch the sunset from the highest point of the city – expecting to be alone with a few monks and ending up instead in a sort of Laotian Oia (Santorini) – I had, not without surprise, the final confirmation.

Glad … I have a bicycle.

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22 December, Luang Prabang (Laos) | Day 204 🇱🇦
Normally I wouldn’t be so stupid to do 30 kilometers on a bicycle, on sunny hills, only to go to see a waterfall, knowing that then I should also do the same way back.
It would be just foolish, I mean.
Then I was quite lucky cause I woke up today just wanting to spend the day like a complete idiot.

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23 Dicembre, Luang Prabang (Laos) | Giorno 205 🇱🇦
Although small and crowded (because it’s really small), I’m glad I chose to stay in Luang Prabang, preparing for Christmas and some kind of homesick I’ll probably feel.
The reason, however, is quite incomprehensible.

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26 Dicembre, Phonsavan (Laos) | Giorno 208 🇱🇦
After spending five days in the glistening Nativity of a magnificent Luang Prabang; after being surrounded by monks, Mekong, colors, flowers, beers and travelers of all kinds; after spending Christmas day in a more horizontal position than a vertical one, today, in Saint Stephen’s Day, instead of having lunch made from yesterday’s leftovers … I decided to leave.
Northern and Central Laos are extremely mountainous – as I could experience by myself a few days ago – so I decided to leave the flat South, after the New Year, to the wheels of my bicycle and to jump on a bus to the totally unknown city of Phonsavan.

It took more than eight hours of valleys, mountains and wooden villages to reach it.
I arrived just before dark, so I will try to find out the reason I came here for only tomorrow.
Tangled and tired from the trip, however, I immediately wanted to take the bicycle and, as always, tried to reach the highest point of the city (a few kilometers away from the Guesthouse I’m staying in, as the owner told me).
Once on the top of Mount Phou Xang, I had a deja-vu.

In front of me I had an amazing scenery that reminded me of Val d’Orcia itself (Orcia Valley in Tuscany) and all those places that I was about to cross exactly one year ago, with my friend Davide, and then Roberto and Giovanni.
I could see Montalcino, San Quirico, Bagno Vignoni and then Castiglione.
I expected to see, at any moment, the stunning Radicofani, with its big Tower, and then the languid green slopes falling down to Acquapendente and Bolsena Lake.
For a moment, I even breathed Chianti and finocchiona flavours.

But, then, I heard the trumpeting of an elephant.
Yes, of an elephant.
Suddenly I opened my eyes, and I remembered I was in Phonsavan.
In the totally unknown city of Phonsavan, in Laos.

But the magic my eyes were able to see, nevertheless, remained for a long time.

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27 December, Phonsavan (Laos) | Day 209 🇱🇦
The Plain of Jars.
That’s why I came to Phonsavan.

Dated around 500 B.C., during the Iron Age, it’s all about hundreds of Jars-shaped giant rocks which have been sleeping for thousands years on this high plateau (over 1100 meters above sea level) in Central Laos, on that piece of Earth caravans heading from the Gulf of Tonkin to central Asia used to cross for centuries.

Funeral urns, containers for food or rainwater, mythological King’s cups … nobody knows exactly what they were or what they represented.
But still, it’s one of the most important archeological sites in South-East Asia.
I was curious, that’s why I came.

Maybe because I woke up with fever.
Maybe because I tried to win fatigue and bone pain with paracetamol and 15 km of cycling.
Maybe because, when I arrived, I found an almost desolate place of rare beauty, inhabited only by ears, trees and wind (and the Jars, of course).
Maybe because I walked random for over an hour, slow as a sloth, over an area that is not much bigger than a football field, ending tired as hell.

But, for me, the Plain of Jars, near Phonsavan, in Central Laos, is one of the best places in the world to … have an archeological nap.

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28 December, Vientiane (Laos) | Day 210 🇱🇦
The funny thing of Laotian cities (at least those I passed so far) is that the bus stations are always located between 5 and 15 km from the city center where you’re headed.
Even when you take buses which travel hundreds of kilometers to get you from point A to point B.

Like to say you are in Rome and you want to go to Milan city center, and the bus takes you only up to Rho. Or Melegnano.
The rest … your business.
Great deals for the tuk tuk drivers, of course.

Needless to say, all this doesn’t displease me.
I feel excessively cool whenever I “unfold” my bicycle, in few seconds, in front of unsuspecting glances and suddenly amazed smiles from those guys who offer me a ride for a few dollars and then, shamelessly, even after receiving a clear “no”, give me a pat on the back and wish me safe travels.

And so, without being too much unfair (almost), I can say that, at the end of month number seven, after Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Moscow, Ulaanbaatar and Beijing, I officially entered the seventeenth capital of this journey.
Vientiane.

And I did it riding a bicycle.

[ 28 December 2016 ] Vientiane (Laos). Patuxai. 5 pm.

29 December, Vientiane (Laos) | Day 211 🇱🇦
A day of complete laziness, spent a bit cycling around and a bit thinking about which direction I should take in the coming weeks.
Due to a great heat and a city that, despite being a capital, seems to me less interesting than Cantù or San Colombano al Lambro, I didn’t do much.
I think I took less than 5 pictures.
Here is one.

Vientiane may also be an ugly city – or so it seemed to me – but it overlooks the Mekong (yes, again) and Thailand (just after the river) … and, at the end of the day, I found out that is able to give those kind of moments when you only want to stop whatever you are doing and look to the West, in utter lazy contemplation.
Like those who were born in this place, and probably never even went away from it, do.
Always.

[ 29 December 2016 ] Vientiane (Laos). Sunset behind the Mekong River, over Thailand. 5,30 pm.

31 December, Pakse (Laos) | Day 213 🇱🇦
One year and one day ago I was in front of an incredible Sunset on Bolsena Lake.
While I was sitting close to the water, staring at one of the most beautiful shows I had (and still have) ever seen, while my friend Davide was taking a picture of me, I remember that I was wishing myself that 2016 could bring many other moments like that one, of real happiness and completeness.
Worth to be lived, I would have once said.

Today, in Pakse, in Southern Laos, I waited for a new incredible sunset.
So many and so different sunsets I’ve seen since the day I left, I could never believe I would see in all my life.
Two hundred and thirteen, to be precise.
Then, however, I thought about all those things I had to bet – and risk – to achieve this small, vain, goal.
Everything I went away from.

The gaze of a parent.
The hug of a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin.
The time of a friend.
The smile of a sister.
The laughter of a nephew.
The excitement of a dog.
The incitement of a colleague.
The kiss of a love.
The fatigue and the satisfaction of a job.
The commitment of a simple, normal life.

And I figured out once again that, objectively, there’s no need to wait for a sunset or to travel for two hundred and thirteen days to be happy, to feel complete and to live moments which are “worth to be lived”.
Every moment can be.
Every single moment, in every single life.

Maybe we just need to keep our eyes open, whatever it may happen and whatever life set apart for us.
And, with them, may our heart be open too.
Every, single, moment.

This is my wish for 2017.
For me, and for all of you.

[ 31 December 2016 ] Pakse (Laos). Sunset on Mekong River. 5,30 pm.
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MAP

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CHINA – YUNNAN II: Dali Lake and Xishuangbanna (9 – 14 December)

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Relying from a day-dream, I realized that my Chinese Visa was about to expire.
The passage for Laos was still hundreds of miles away, and so, on December 9th, I left again.
Always in Yunnan, but southwards.
First towards the blue shores of Dali Lake, then towards the first palm trees and Siam huts in the land border called Xishuangbanna.
My Chinese days had come to the end, and I still remember the sensations of those moments: a great desire to explore new countries, the tiredness of those two difficult months in Zhong Guo (ancient name for China) and a bag of joy and gratitude for all the experiences I had the fortune to live and which I had to list, before going out, in order to be able to believe that I had really lived them.

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9 December, Dali (China) | Day 191 🇨🇳
After 4 nights there, I left Shaxi village.
A village that was able to give me a lot – much more than I could expect – but it is now time to move on.
I only have six days lefy on my visa and Laos is not around the corner.

This afternoon I made it to Dali, where I will stay a few days to breathe a lake climate I’ll tell you tomorrow about.
Today’s image, however, wants to be again for Shaxi.
An image of the main square, which my memory will keep for long time as the main center of a truly magical place.

A picture I took yesterday evening, very fastly, as I was looking for a place to have dinner while all my energies were involved in writing yesterday’s piece.
It is a dark, moved, wrong and fuzzy picture.

But, actually:
– I have the equipment I have;
– I’m not a photographer;
– I could have done worse;
– I do not think it’s that important, after all.

[ 8 December 2016 ] Shaxi (China). 8 pm.

10 December, Dali (China) | Day 192 🇨🇳
I never understood this thing I have with water.
It always existed, but I never understood it.
I think it’s nothing incredible and probably it is something common among many people, but, yea, I am amazed every time.

I just need to see a sea, a lake, a pond, a river, a spring, a brook – indeed something where there is water – and I clear up, I calm down, I relax myself, I feel lighter, brighter, braver and almost complete.
At peace, sometimes.

Another thing I learned from this travel is that I’ll hardly be able to live in a place far away from water, any kind of water it may be.

I loved its reflections on Garda Lake, in Bohinj, in Mostar and Zadar, on the Danube, on the Moldava, on the Vistula, on the Ob and on the Yulong River, in Kamares bay in Sifnos and between the channels of St. Petersburg, on the Baltic Sea in Riga, Tallinn and Salacgrīva and between the mystical rocks of the Olkhon Island, in the Baikal Lake. All memories which often lash my mind, as a wave that uses all of its strength to crash against the shore, and then quietfully retires.

Today, for the first time, I put my eyes on the waters of the Dali Lake, in China.
And, even if the shy Yunnan wind was unable to raise even a drop from that neverending incredible blue … the wave, suddenly, became a tsunami.

[ 10 December 2016 ] Dali (China). The Lake. 11 am.

11 December, Dali (China) | Day 193 🇨🇳
Sometimes I also try to write some kind of serious posts; posts that make me think, that could make people think, maybe inspire someone.
Posts from a “blogger”, we could say.

I know I’m not, but sometimes I take myself too seriously.
I’m wrong, I’m aware of it.
And, even if I was not, they always remind me.
My friends.

Like yesterday, for example.
I don’t even have the time to ask a Chinese guy to take a picture of me when I’m trying to face a lake in a mystical way and to share it on a whatsapp group, that the virtual arrows come straight.

One is standing on a chair in the garden and looks at the neighbor’s wall.
Another one holds a flower on his balcony and mimics Freddy Mercury at Wembley.
The third attempts a jump above Como Lake, aiming for the absolute.
And the last one has to take care of the baby, nothing to do then … so I like to think that he is still hibernated while cooking chicken wings, dresses like a gipsy, outdoors, at zero degrees, in a bombed garden.

So when you want to be serious, Vieri, remember them.
When someone asks me if there is something I miss from Italy, I always answer that, yes, taken for granted that I miss my family, a spaghetti dish and a good Franciacorta wine … here they are.
My friends.

[ 11 December 2016 ] Dali (China). 4 pm.

12 December, Dali – Jinghong (China) | Day 194 🇨🇳
Yesterday, an entire day spent fixing the bicycle.
Today, 14 neverending hours on a bus between the Yunnan hills, going South, near the border with Laos.
Hence, with today’s post, I’ll share some photos of Dali lake, where I had been pedaling for several hours, two days ago, before I got punctured on the way back 5 km away from my hostel and I found a lift to Dali from a Chinese family, while it was turning cold and dark.

Before visiting it, I was wondering if there is life around Dali lake.
And well I found out that there is.
There are children throwing stones.
There are women beating fishing nets with bamboo sticks.
There are chefs flirting with girls.
There are dudes, surrounded by seagulls, who cannot understand emoticons.
There are monks all dressed in red celebrating outdoor ceremonies.
There are some kind of camels trying to be cool.
There are fishermen hypnotized by the hook. There are couples hypnotized by love.
There are people who take pictures, people who try to look like a princess, people who smoke, people who eat in the sun.
There are people who smile at you.

Yes, there’s life around Dali lake.
A lot of life.

And me?
I just waited for the sunset, beer in hand, trying not to miss any single little thing of all of this.

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13 December, Jinghong (China) | Day 195 🇨🇳

It is 33 years that every time I hear its name, somehow, I don’t know why, I shudder, and at the same time I feel extremely pumped up.
Today I finally saw it, for the first time, in a Yunnan province which sounds like a shout from a wild magician: Xishuangbanna.
In a border city which clearly suffers Chinese, Thai, Laotian and Burmese influences, assembling all of them together in a rare fascinating mix.
Probably in the next few months I’ll get sick of it, but maybe not.
So, here it is.
The big Mekong.

[ 13 December 2016 ] Jinghong, Xishuangbanna Province (China). Mekong River. 2 pm.

14 December, Jinghong (China) | Day 196 🇨🇳
If someone, long ago, had told me that one day I would have spent 2 months in China, crossing it from North to South, along with a folding bicycle, I think I would have burst out laughing loud.

If someone, long ago, had told me that one day, close to turn 33, I would have entered from Mongolia on a pick-up;
that I would have passed the northern deserts on a night bus, lulled by the stench of feet of my traveling companions, the sunset behind the dunes and the moon that looked into my window;
that I would have waken up in a cold and sunny Beijing, where I would have wandered for three days in the middle of millennial alleys and merciless pollution;
that I would have packed my bike like it was a rice-sack to reach the hot and jagged Guilin;
that I would have got sunburned while pedaling towards the touristic Yangshuo;
that I would have spent more than a month working extensively for a Guesthouse, building true friendships and learning how to love the Yulong River Valley and its inhabitants;
that I would have learned a few words of Chinese, the basics of Tai Chi and of wok cooking;
that I would have swum almost every night in the calm and languid waters of the Yulong River, excited each time as if it was the first;
that I would have left the Yangshuo Outside Inn haunted by doubts and sadness;
that I would have observed from a train the gray ugliness of Kunming’s palaces;
that I would have run away to Lijiang and the Tiger Leaping Gorge, turning my eyes to peaks and breathtaking valleys, stars and Dragons worthy a poem, breathing Tibet;
that I would have been seduced by an old village named Shaxi, by its slowed down time, its narrow streets and courts, by the visions of one day in the middle of temples and hills, where my heart would have stopped for a few moments;
that I would have felt the incredible call of water in front of the mystical blue of Dali Lake;
that I would have got punctured 3 times in two weeks and I would have felt sluggish and unmotivated as my destroyed tubes;
that I would have received the unconditional and sincere help of many people and I would have felt great again;
that I would have discovered the Yunnan mountains from another slow bus and I would have been lying, surrounded by palm trees and flowers, in the warm and colourful parks of a city that seems Thailand already;
that I would have spent the last day on a hammock on the terrace of a house in Jinghong, dreaming about a new destination, thinking how huge, complex, varied and fascinating this country is as perhaps no other one in the world and remembering the smiles and the eyes of every single great person I met during this period.

If someone, long ago, had told me that one day this would have happened, I think I would have laughed like crazy.

But, well, now, as I’m coming to the last hours of my two months in China, I think I’ll have to laugh seriously.
Because, if I only look back, I can say that – this all – was true.

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STATISTICS CHINA

KM on BICYCLE: 470
KM on AUTOBUS: 2730
KM on TRAIN: 2960
NIGHTS in HOSTEL: 20
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 37
NIGHTS in TRAIN: 2
EXPENSES: 1538 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Renminbi (Yuan)
“GOOD DAY”: “Ni Hao”
“THANK YOU”: “Xiexie”

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MAP

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CHINA – Shaxi: the Way to a Dream (8 December)

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8 December, Shaxi (China) | Day 190 🇨🇳
I’m not used to write down the detailed history of my days (as I think it’s boring for me and for those who read me), but today I’ll make an exception.
What will follow may seem coming out of my fantasy, but nothing is invented.
A surreal day, between dreams and reality, which I’ll keep forever among my best memories.
Of this journey, and of my life.

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I had chosen to remain one more day in Shaxi, because I like it very much, and so I did.
I didn’t want to be lazy for hours, like yesterday, so I asked the boys from the hostel what I could do to spend my last day at its best.
I was told to go to visit the Shibaoshan, a complex of Buddhist temples, rocky sculptures and imperial grottoes, dating back to over 13 centuries ago.
With a local bus I could reach the entrance and the first Temple, and then walk or take another bus passing all the scenic 9 kms, full of historical wonders, of the place.

“But if you want, you can also start walking from here and reach the Shizhong Temple in a few hours. That Temple is the last one you’d find on the classic circuit and is also the most beautiful one. There is a very ancient path which takes you over the mountains here next to the village. Almost noone walks it anymore and you would also avoid to pay the ticket, as you’ll arrive there from behind.” – they also added, almost as if they were revealing a secret.

“I don’t care about the 65 Yuan ticket – I answered – also because, if I want to visit the grottoes, I guess I will still have to pay. But, yes, I’d rather walk. I’d rather gain it with my strenght, the result. Whatever it is.”

So I left around 10, while the village was slowly awakening and all the locals, freezing in their open shops, were smiling surprised at me as I was dressed only with shorts, shirt and usual woollen hat.
After about one hour on a cement road I take the bend for Shadeng village and reach the entrance of a still shadowed little valley.
I’m not sure I’m on the right direction, but two old ladies carrying loads of wood on their back nod at me, smiling an ensuring “yes”.

A white lonely dog runs with me for ten minutes, as he wanted to bring me to the first trail. We play together until I spot the Red Temple – the first of the direction points the guys from the hostel told me not to miss – and I calm down.
The path is really the right one.

Then I begin two hours of hard trekking, between wooden bridges, hundreds of steps, muddy and rocky paths, blinding sun, brushwood, doubts and extreme, almost distressing, loneliness.
But I’m surrounded by silence and wonder, and I don’t want to stop.

Leaving the Ladies
Red Temple
Steps

I reach the top of the mountain, and the path continues on a plateau that leads me to the Shizhong Temple.
I spot it from above, ecstatic, while a slight flute music comes to my ears.
I stare at the space, drink some water and snap a few photos, before I follow down some other steps and look for the entrance.

Shizhong Temple from above

When I step into the main court it’s one o’clock, and the sun stands fierce on my head.
There is no one, apart from me and the 4 men who work in the Temple, as guides or attendants, hidden in some shadow.
They are practicing, each of them, different kind of arts.

The first is writing on a book.
The second is playing a flute.
The third is watering flowers.
The fourth is painting Chinese characters, with one big brush, on a ping pong table.

The Temple Courtyard

I greet them, as I approach to the bench where two of them are sitting.
I am hungry and pretty tired.
There’s not even a noise.
Only the whistle of some birds, the sound of the wind between the plants and the whispers of the falling leaves.

Jinliang – the first of the four men – puts his book aside and starts talking to me.
He’s studying English and it’s clear that he wants to exercise the language, wishing also to loosen the boredom of an unusual quite lazy day.

“You know, during the high season we got almost 2000 visitors per day in this Temple – he reveals, pouring me some tea and offering cookies – but today you are the first. It’s strange. Where are you from? Do you want to talk a little? If you want I can also guide you to see the grottoes, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the ticket. It would be my pleasure, and maybe you can also help me with my English.”
“Of course! It would be an honour.” – I confess, while I’m wandering through the court, tea in hand, fascinated by the gestures of the fourth man working on the ping pong table.

Chinese writing art

“Do you like Chinese writing?” – he asks.
“I don’t know anything about it, but I am very curious. It seems to me that you’re drawing. What are you writing?” – I tell him, still enchanted in his gestures.
“A Chinese poetry. It relaxes me a lot. Young people don’t do it anymore, because it’s boring at the beginning. But when you handle this art it is almost better than music. I’m glad you like it.” – he closes shortly, seeing that Jinliang is waiting for me to start the private tour.

I reach him, and he walks with me for more than half an hour in every corner of the Temple, telling me about dynasties, Chinese beliefs, ethnic minorities, Buddhist gods and various bodhisattva, stopping every time to read along with me the English captions. I’m surprised by the level of his language – certainly a way better than the Chinese average – and thank him from the heart, at the end of his explanations.

Bodhisattva

As we go back to the court, I can see that Yun Xin – the “Writer” – is waiting for me cause he wants to paint a new paper in front of me, to be given as a gift.
Within a minute of magical movement he completes a small, simple work which for me is like a gem.
I ask him what’s written in it.

“It’s another poetry:
YOU PLANT A WILLOW TO SEE AS SOMETHING GROWS.
YOU PLANT A PINE TO FEED YOUR QI, AND YOURSELF.”

I’m shocked and assure him sincerely, that “this is one of the most unexpected and generous gifts I have ever received” and thank him sincerely, while I sit on a rock heated by the sun.

Jinliang is back to write on his book, Yun Xin on the ping pong table.
The other two don’t say a word, but never stopped taking care of the flowers and playing the flute.

The Flute

I look at the sky, listening to the wind, and I tend my ears outward.
Breathe in.
Then I close my eyes and, for a moment, it happens.

The world stops, and me with him.
I don’t know exactly what happened, but for a few short moments I inhale a feeling of full bliss I was never before touched by.

So close to understand an explanation.
So close to understand the meaning of things.

Shizhong Temple

Then I sip my tea again and I get up, to go away.

“You can take a bus from here and get to another Temple – Jinliang explains me – or take another one and return to Shaxi.”
But I answer that “for today I think I received much more than I could ask. I don’t need anything more, and I prefer to go back from where I came, only with my forces, and follow again the path that led me here, beyond my expectation, to enjoy some of the most true and deep emotions I have ever experienced.”

The path back, even if it’s the same one I took in the morning, now seems to be different.
The same steps, the same brushwood, the same rocky and muddy paths, the same blinding sun.
Also the same solitude, but not extreme and distressing anymore.

The same way, but a new one.
It takes me maybe one hour, maybe two. Honestly I don’t know.

Way to a Dream?
The Way back

As I get to the bottom of the valley, I look again for the white dog. He doesn’t show up.
Squirrels and birds I’m not able to define, instead of him.

Shortly before I embrace again the cement road, I come across a group of guys. 5 of them, sitting at the edge of a bridge, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and playing cards.
I’m invited to cheer with a Dali beer.
I make them happy, and so do to myself.
I stay with them for a while, no way to understand even a single word they say, but laughing, drinking and raising our bottles.

I don’t know what time it is, but I don’t care.
Just a few seconds before I leave them, while the sun is going down and the cold begins to give me shivers, I realize that there are dozens of empty bottles scattered on the ground.
I collect them one by one and fill a pack.
Then I bring it away with me.
After so much receiving, today, the only thing I can do to give something back is cleaning up a few meters of field, and it makes me feel better.

Cheering with the guys

So I start walking again, up to reach the main road towards Shaxi.
I don’t feel any weights and I’m fast and light. No shivers anymore.

A small cart stops next to me and two new guys ask me if I need a lift.
I’m not tired, but I accept.
They leave me in front of their home, where I lay down the pack full of empty bottles, which someone will come to clean up.

On the Cart, going back to Shaxi

How many hours in total?
No idea.
Lights are low now.
It might be the sunset, as well as a brand new dawn.
I feel calm, nothing could touch me.

The day is almost gone, and I don’t know if I have lived it for real or if I ventured myself into a dream I’ll not be able to exit from.
The world started moving again, and me with it.
I have to start writing, in order to believe it was real.

Although, before doing it, I take a look at my hands and find out that something it’s still there, reminding me that, yes, everything was real.
Something that shines also through the dark night, and always will.

Yun Xin’s poetry.

Yun Xin’s Poetry

CHINA – Yunnan I: Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shaxi (30 November – 7 December)

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After 40 days at the Yanghsuo Outside Inn, I felt it was time to move on.
I wanted to walk through new roads and explore some unknown regions; Southeast Asia was very close, but I decided to follow the call of a Chinese region I had so much heard about and which had been nourishing for years my hidden travel fantasies.
Yunnan, for a few weeks, would have been my new horizon.
My theater. My jubilation.

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30 November, Lijiang (China) | Day 182 🇨🇳
Well, I started again.
And I started with a “bang”.
No, nothing amazing. Only two really endless days.
Here’s a very quick summary of what happened since I left the Outside Inn.

I cycled up to Yangshuo bus station, I took a 2-hours bus to Guilin, I slept one night in Guilin, the next day I cycled up to Guilin North Station, I stayed on a Chinese train for 20 hours, I went off into a gigantic, rainy and frightening Kunming, I decided not to stay there, I cycled up to the bus station in Kunming, I bought a ticket to Lijiang (no idea how it is), I was on a bus again for nine hours, I arrived in Lijiang and I found out that my bicycle has a huge hole in the front wheel (here is the real “bang”), I walked an hour and a half looking for a hostel. At 22, I found one. Mama Naxi Guesthouse.

Lijiang … I still have no idea how it is, as I arrived after dark.
This photo was taken on the bus, when for a while I thought I was somewhere along the Orta Lake in Italy, or Iseo Lake, or Bolsena Lake.
But no, it was the Dali Lake.
Not the painter, without an accent.
Da-li.
Tomorrow we’ll see if all this big cinema was worth the effort.
Something tells me yes.

[ 30 November 2016 ] Somewhere along Dali Lake. 4,30 pm.

1 December, Lijiang (China) | Day 183 🇨🇳
That something inside telling me that it was a good thing to get up here, in the end was not wrong.
I ran out of all my spare tyres, but I have to say that this Lijiang is worth a visit.

The old town, even if is trying to preserve a sort of characteristic atmosphere of the old days, is certainly too much Disneyland for my tastes. But, after walking for a long time, I could come across some little gems.
Like this, the Black Dragon Pool.

And, although the snowy mountain that stands behind there remained covered throughout the day by merciless clouds, we certainly can not say that the old Black Dragon has chosen a bad spot for his private ablutions.

[ 1 December 2016 ] Lijiang (China). Black Dragon Pool. 5 pm.

2 December, Tiger Leaping Gorge (China) | Day 184 🇨🇳
I’m a bit tired, and tomorrow I’ll tell you why.
Meanwhile tonight I sleep here.

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3 December, Tiger Leaping Gorge (China) | Day 185 🇨🇳
So the story of the Tiger Leaping Gorge went something like this.
It was just a name to me, one of those sets of high-sounding words that only Asian cultures are able to evoke.
Due to some documentaries or maybe a book, it has been fueling my imagination about China and its mystical places for years.
But I had no idea where it was, nor I worried about it.
If some special attractions happen to be on my way – or close – I try not to miss them; but I don’t take hundreds of kilometers detours only to fulfil a little desire.
The other day, however, while I was trying to change the inner tube of my bike, I heard one of my hostel mates booking a bus for the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge.

“Ah, is it here?!” – I asked in surprise.
“Yes, two hours from here. I’m going there for a two-day trek, I will sleep in one of several Guesthouses you may find on the trail. It seems to be very nice. ”
“Oh …”

And so the next morning I got on the same bus and, with the backpack only, I found out what it was and I began the trek: 30 kms, 2 in a fierce uphill climb and as many into merciless downhill, various small villages on the road, vertical paths, furious mountains, a rushing river, snow-covered peaks, vigorous nature, and memorable waterfalls and bright skies.

The magnificence that surrounds the name is certainly respected, but unfortunately the human hand represents a strong damage to the magic of the place.
For the many ongoing works and road construction sites down in the valley and unnecessary toll check points up on the trek can deny some of what the Tiger Leaping Gorge itself was able to create during centuries, the suggestions and the memories of dozens of generations and so, sometimes, also my fantasies.

Nevertheless, I tried to enjoy every single meter up there, to seclude myself from the howling noises coming from the valley, and to dive into the beauty all around.
Which I try to share in these few photos.

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4 December, Lijiang (China) | Day 186 🇨🇳
This morning I set the alarm at 7 am, in order to leave Lijiang quietly and to go to Shaxi village, before continuing southwards.
As I woke up, however, I heard a hiss. I understood at once that it was my laziness and the desire to stay in bed, on a Sunday morning. So I did. I remained idle in the hostel for a long time, deciding to leave to Shaxi for tomorrow, enjoying the sun in the veranda and listening to music in complete solitude.

At about 3.30, after a holy nap, I heard again that hiss.
The same I heard in the morning.
No, it could not be my laziness another time.
So I decided to follow its call, trying to find and reach its spring.

Where did it bring me?
In a deja-vu.
The same place where I had been staying, for 3 hours, 3 days ago.
And then I realized where the hiss was coming from.

It was the old Black Dragon from the Lagoon calling me, so that I could see and even know the place I couldn’t spot on day 183 cause of the clouds. His older brother’s magnificent home: the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
There behind.

[ 4 December 2016 ] Lijiang (China). Black Dragon Pool, view on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. 4,30 pm.

5 December, Shaxi (China) | Day 187 🇨🇳
One of the things that excites me and at the same time scares me the most when I leave a place – and especially one where I felt good – is the uncertainty of what I will find next. Not knowing what is going to happen.

Where am I going?
How will the new destination be?
Will I find an acceptable place to sleep?
Will I like it?

I always try, wherever possible, to find solutions which make me feel a bit like at home, or at least good enough (although they must be some kind of cheap). I don’t stop to question too much or seek comforts (a mattress and a hot shower are more than enough), but it is clear that if I find even peace, relax, uniqueness and beauty … I’m happier. So far, during all these months, the most pleasant hostels I found on my way were in Ljubljana, Belgrade, Prague and Moscow. Apart from the Yangshuo Outside Inn, I think the best one was in Moscow (the Good Mood Hostel).

But I didn’t come yet to Shaxi village, which already won me and I will write tomorrow about. And at the Horse Pen Inn. For 30 Yuan (€ 4), I would say that it is not a bad solution at all, for a few nights in the North Yunnan countryside.

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6 December, Shaxi (China) | Day 188 🇨🇳
China without lights.
China of the slow manners.
China of the fields.
China of the simple people.
China of the silences.
China of the brooks.
China of centuries-old bridges.
China of the rakes and the ears.
China of the rice dried in the sun.
China of the wooden houses.
China of the colourful temples.
China of the bamboo baskets.
China of the laughing children and the tireless smiling old women.
China of a tea against the wall.
China of cards playing in a little square.
China of the warm sun.
China of the bright arrogant stars.
China of the past which will hardly ever come back.
China of the skies coloured with mirages.
China I wanted to discover and that I found in Shaxi.
The one I really like.
So much.

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7 December, Shaxi (China) | Day 189 🇨🇳
Yesterday around on foot to explore the surroundings and observe the valley from above.
Today with my bicycle to visit the Lake of I don’t remember which Dragon anymore.
And I got the feeling that I’ll stay one day more, here in this Shaxi.

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CHINA: a “home” called Yangshuo Outside Inn (23 October – 28 November)

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A town (Yangshuo), a calm river (Yulong), an enchanted valley and hundreds of mountains worthy of the best poems. And then Betty, Laure, Michelle, Xiaoping, the whole staff of a beautiful little Guesthouse and a friend named Ronald.
This, my Chinese “home” for over 40 days: Yangshuo Outside Inn.

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23 October, Yangshuo (China) | Day 144 🇨🇳
Lately – I mean in the last weeks – I was thinking about some things:
– that the first almost 5 months of travel flew away, literally;
– that so far I went very fast, giving too little time to know a place as I wish I could;
– that all those bureaucratic problems related to visas pissed me off a lot;
– that I need to recharge energies, in a serious way, before entering Southeast Asia;
– that China, and especially Guangxi and Yunnan regions, are fascinating me deeply;
– that it would not be bad learning some basics of Chinese if I want to ride free for a while in this country;
– that I’d like to rediscover some kind of routine and to know people which can remain friends for something more than 4 days;
– that I wouldn’t mind doing some manual work, maybe learning some new arts and saving money in the meantime;
– that I would like to spend my upcoming birthday in a place less unknown than a random hostel.

So it happened that I arrived here, near the Yulong River, and I found a friendly 44years-old Dutch guy named Ronald who is managing a nice Guesthouse surrounded by a tropical forest and gives me the opportunity to get a few-weeks-break, offering me a room and food in exchange of temporary help on duties.
I don’t know exactly what I will have to do, but i’ll do it.
Probably I will help a little in the kitchen, trying to import an Italian touch into some dishes, I will plaster walls together with a Chinese handyman who’s not able to speak any English, I’ll cut plants, I’ll gather leaves, I’ll change lanterns, I’ll fix roofs and gutters, I’ll move things, I’ll clean things, I’ll move things back again.
Basically, then, a lot of things.
And hopefully a lot of beers.
And everything I was writing up above.

So, for those who want, here is the place where you could find me
in the next 2 or 4 (if I’ll manage to extend my visa) weeks.
The Yangshuo Outside Inn, 4 km outside Yangshuo town,
South of Guilin, in Guangxi region, in Southern China or nearly that.

[ 23 October 2016 ] Yangshuo Outside Inn (China). 4 pm.

24 October, Yangshuo (China) | Day 145 🇨🇳
3 days I’m here, 3 days I find myself staring at some crayon-coloured sunsets
exploding behind some kind of painted mountains.
Something says it’s going to be soon 3+3 = 33.

[ 24 October 2016 ] Yangshuo Outside Inn (China). 6,30 pm

26 Ottobre, Yangshuo (Cina) | Giorno 147 🇨🇳
I’m sorry if I didn’t write yesterday, but I was quite busy in few things.
I had to attend a Qigong lesson, to cut few pieces of woods, then paint them, to change a tab, to dive into a green river, to drink some beers … and to turn 33  😊

[ 25 October 2016 ] Yangshuo Outside Inn (China). 10 pm.

27 October, Yangshuo (China) | Day 148 🇨🇳
The best thing that can happen after a day at work (or, well, better say few hours of work … which for me is still something quite unusual lately) is telling your boss – who’s just a guy like me managing a Guesthouse, and already a friend – something like “Hey, see you in half an hour.”
“And where are you going?”
“To the river. To swim …”

[ 27 October 2016 ] Yangshuo (China) Yulong River. 6 pm.

28 October, Yangshuo (China) | Day 149 🇨🇳
Last night Ronald (which is my friend and temporary boss at the Yangshuo Outside Inn) told me that this morning I could have taken it easy, because we would have begun to work only after lunch.
I didn’t complain much, of course, and slept pretty good.
When I opened my eyes, around 9, I had one of those awakenings when you don’t remember exactly where you are and why you’re there. I asked myself for a few moments where I was, and, when I started to realize, I doubted about the answer. So I took my bicycle and pedaled for a few hundred meters, surrounded by trees and silence, up to reach a small village right behind the Guesthouse, looking for a confirmation.
As I arrived at the bridge I looked down to the East and I saw a man pushing on a bamboo canoe. I raised my sight and I saw others. Then I raised it a bit more and I saw this.
So I said: “Yes, Vieri, it’s like that. you are in China.”

[ 28 October 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 10 am.

29 October, Yangshuo (China) | Day 150 🇨🇳
From 30 degrees of the last days to 15 tonight.
But still …

[ 29 October 2016 ] Yangshuo Outside Inn (China). 6 pm.

30 Ottobre, Yangshuo (Cina) | Giorno 151 🇨🇳
Every evening, after a day spent painting walls, fixing bicycles and cutting wood, I like
to go swimming in Yulong River.
But that has already been said.
What I didn’t say it’s that, to do this, I have to walk around 15 minutes across this valley.
Whistling, generally.
Cause it’s not a bad thing at all.

[ 30 October 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River Valley. 6 pm.

1 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 153 🇨🇳
They told me to go up to the Moon Hill, “cause the view from there is beautiful”.
I wasn’t sure about it.
So I went up.
And I reconsidered myself.

[ 1 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Moon Hill. 4,30 pm.

2 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 154 🇨🇳
Mountains.
A river.
A bamboo canoe.
And I feel small, but small small.

[ 2 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 5 pm.

4 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 156 🇨🇳
After several days of uncertain and cloudy weather, today the sun came out.
Temperatures are not those close to 35 degrees as when I arrived in Yangshuo, two weeks ago, and so I thought the afternoon should be given to the mountains around Yulong River valley.
With Ronald (the manager of the Guesthouse I’m staying in) and a couple of other friends I started to walk uphill somewhere, looking for trails covered with forests and wild vegetation.
Armed only with a bamboo stick and curiosity, I had fun for a few hours cutting down bushes and thorns – like when I was kid and I used to behead cardoon flowers together with my cousins ​​- until the sunset ambushed me in the middle of a silent valley far away from the present.
The perfect time to sit on a rock recalling the lotus position, as recently another friend suggested me, to breathe deeply for a while, and forget about finding a way to get back, because, in a time like that, it wouldn’t have been important at all.

[ 4 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River Valley. 6 pm.

5 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 157 🇨🇳

“Time
Don’t let it slip away
Raise your drinkin’ glass
Here’s to yesterday
In Time
We’re all gonna trip away
Don’t piss Heaven off
We got Hell to pay”
( Aerosmith – Full Circle )

In memory of a friend.

[ 5 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River Valley. 5,30 pm.

6 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 158 🇨🇳
I published already a similar photo a few days ago, so I apologize for the double one.
I am repetitive, I know, but the fact is that every evening I find myself sitting on the edge of this river.
Sometimes there is clear sky, some other times there’s the mist.
Sometimes it’s cool, some other times it is hot and humid.
Sometimes I jump in immediately, some other times I stop a little to contemplate all of this.
So how could I not be repetitive?

[ 6 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 5,20 pm.

7 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 159 🇨🇳
After about two weeks I’ve been working at the Yangshuo Outside Inn, today, on a Monday, I asked for a day “off”, so that I could take my bicycle and go a little more into the beauty of this part of Guangxi region. I was told to pay a visit to Xingping village, because “is not too far away, is still something like a typical Chinese village as it was Yangshuo 15 years ago and is surrounded by postcard landscapes”.

I didn’t know what “not too far” could mean, but I thought Xingping might be a good idea anyway.
“You have a whole day Vieri, plenty of time – I said to myself – and if Xingping’s view is also represented on the 20 Yuan banknotes, there must be a reason …”

Around 10 it was already very hot, even if the sun laid a bit shy behind a sad cloudy cover, and after 5 km of fresh pedaling I stopped at the bar where I already feel like at home, to greet Adam, the owner.
“Oh, yes, Xingping absolutely deserves a day off – he confirmed – and do you know that from this side of the river Li there is also a scenic route to get there?”
“Really? And how is it?”
“F*** awesome, believe me. About thirty kilometers far from the chaos and the main road, in the middle of beautiful villages and mountains. I usually go there on a scooter and it takes a couple of hours, because the last kilometers are downhill on a steep dirt road. Yeah, I mean, you have to find the streets and there is a lot to climb, but if you are good in orienteering and you’re fit enough, I think you can do it. “

As always, in cases like this, my recent motto came to my head, reminding me that “When ever again will you have the chance to do it? If you can do it today, then do it! Better to sweat and maybe get lost, rather than starting already regretting the choice! “

So I can witness that two hours on a scooter on Chinese mountain roads become almost 4 on a bicycle.
4 hours of crazy uphills, slow and blissful villages, futuristic kumquat fields, alive sweat, peasants carts, hidden streets and passages, impossible effort, stolen kumquats (what is 5 little pieces amongst billions?), funny downhills which I enjoyed as a kid while letting the air to cuddle up and cool my spine, teasers to children smiling at me with an ecstatic “Hello!” and, yes, Adam was right, of truly breathtaking views.
Sometimes I felt like as almost I wanted to lose consciousness, in order to avoid being overwhelmed.

When I won the last mountain, I looked down on the Li River and I spotted the ferry pier to cross it, a very satisfied “Yessss!” boomed in the valleys, as well as when last year I managed to reach the various Chora perched on top of the Cycladic mountains (those ones who followed that trip, will remember).

And as for the 20 yuan banknotes and Xingping’s landscape, this I will leave to tomorrow.
Also because, to be honest, after 4 hours such as those, it was really the last thing I could care about.

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8 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 160 🇨🇳
I still had to complete yesterday’s post.
Also cause today, due to a 10-hours-general-blackout and the energies I spent yesterday, I did nothing but nothing.
My personal 20 Yuan banknotes view.

[ 7 November 2016 ] Xingping (China). Li River. 3 pm

10 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 162 🇨🇳
What do you do when you are painting walls and suddenly a big blackout brings everything off for hours, in the entire village, outside it’s 10 degrees and rainy and someone already made a fire?
You do like Luca Brasi.
But instead that with the fishes … you sleep with the cats.

[ 10 November 2016 ] Yangshuo Outside Inn (China). 4 pm.

12 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 164 🇨🇳
When the weather is awful, sometimes the place is not.

[ 12 November ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 5 pm.

13 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 165 🇨🇳
Three days of almost continuous rain and harassing moisture.
Drops everywhere.
On the walls (even indoor ones), on the leaves, on the flowers, on the clothes, on the mustache.
When I breathe it seems to me like I’m eating a melting popsicle.
So I’m enjoying the work, which is going on in spite of everything, the fire, when darkness falls, and the sweet thought of how this valley will return to be, as soon as the sky stops crying.

[ 3 November ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River Valley. 5 pm.

14 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 166 🇨🇳
Today I finished with my job a little earlier than usual, so I went to the river – as I always do at the end of the day – a little earlier than usual.
At 4, actually, instead of at 5.
I’m happy, because almost at my 25th day in the Yulong River valley I found out, magna cum laetitia, that my favourite spot to go swimming is exactly the one local people use to wash motorcycles and … to gut ducks.
Good, but not extremely good.

[ 14 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 4 pm.

15 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 167  – VIDEO 🇨🇳
This is what happens in China, every night, when it doesn’t rain, in the squares
of every little village and in the big city parks.
Women, men, young guys, old couples and children gather together and relax their nerves, no matter
what kind of day they’ve had.
They chat, gossip, laugh, play.
Then someone brings a giant radio and turns on a non-sense music, on which women of all ages dance endlessly an even more non-sense choreography.
The purpose (if there must be one)?
Physical activity and entertainment, simply.
At the end everyone is happy, and I’m not kidding.
That’s why I love this country.

PS: sorry for the video quality, but I have no specific technical equipment with me.
PS2: Do not miss the little guy at the end of the video.

 

16 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 168 🇨🇳
That moment when contours, colors, shades and shadows define each other and
the painting is revealed in all its forms.
That moment when the signals have led you up the mountain, you’re finally out of the fog that ambushed the valley and you prepare yourself to dive in the downhill.
That moment when all your ambition is reset because you finally realised what you want to be in life.
A bamboo raft on the Yulong River.
Or a flower that raises next to it.

[ 16 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 5 pm.

17 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 169 🇨🇳
After a week of rain, humidity, clouds, gray, frogs, damp, mugginess and thunder, the wind came.
And the sun.
Oh, yes, I will miss this place.

[ 17 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 3 pm.

18 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 170 🇨🇳
“So did you decide? Another week in Yangshuo? Is it official?”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“But didn’t you have enough? I mean, after a month you do more or less always the same things and you swim in the same river, aren’t you bored?”
“No, not at all. I like to do always ‘those’ same things, and I’ll tell you more … i’m gonna miss them too, when I move. Anyway, it’s not just for that. The fact is that after learning how to walk on water, as you see, I would like to learn also something else. And I found out that a few hundred meters from where I’m based there’s a school for this discipline. 5 afternoons will be only a brief touch, but I want to try at least.”
“I see. So what is that about exactly?”
“Tai Chi!”
“Oh my gosh! Bless you!”

[ 17 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yulong River. 3 pm.

20 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 172 🇨🇳
All this China.
So much China that it’s almost impossible to imagine there should be also an end.

[ 20 November 2016 ] Somewhere not far from BaiSha village (China). 6 pm.

24 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 176  – VIDEO 🇨🇳
First: I didn’t know someone was recording.

Second: note …
A) the birds all around
B) the boot flipflops
C) the ignorant ballet at sec 34
D) the idiot laugh at sec 51
E) the relentless smash at min 1:22
F) the epic fail at min 1:35
G) the indisputable victory

LEVEL “ASIAN” = ACCOMPLISHED

 

25 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 177  🇨🇳
In this picture you can see a famous international Tai Chi champion, and his Master.
The eyes going where the hell they want is a result of countless hours of practice, balancing energies, movements and various postures.
We use it to disorient the enemy.
It’s like you are there but you’re not there at the same time, something like that.
I also learned that, but the problem is that my eyes bend inwards.
A big mistake.
Never cross the streams, it’s important.

Ok.
The truth is that, after one week practicing this new art … I’d better go back to swimming.

[ 25 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Tai Chi School. 5 pm.

26 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 178 🇨🇳
Only one day left at the Yangshuo Outside Inn, only one day left in Yangshuo in general.
Yangshuo town is located about 5 km from the Guesthouse where I have been staying and working all this time; due to my laziness and to the beauty of the Yulong River valley, I confess
I did not go to “the center” very often.

This doesn’t mean that’s a bad one – indeed, quite the contrary – but most of the time I preferred to stay away from the shops, the traffic, the streams of tourists, relaxing myself close to nature and silence, and going to the village only occasionally, just to have some kind of different dinner or to play poker at the bar which became almost like a second home here.

Coming to this day, I guess it’s fair to pay a little tribute to this place anyway.
So this is Yangshuo, viewed from the pedestrian overpass taking
to the famous commercial road known as West Street.

[ 26 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). 11 am.

27 Novembre, Yangshuo (Cina) | Giorno 179 🇨🇳
And so, almost at the beginning of the seventh month, my last day in Yangshuo arrived.
I was lucky, cause after seven rainy foggy days, wind and sun gave me a memorable greeting.

If someone ever ask my why, after 5 months of solo travelling, I decided to come here and to stay much more than I expected, I will answer that I was tired, and I needed a break.

I will answer that I found a Guesthouse which is almost perfect.
I will answer that I wanted to work and to feel useful, not only for myself.
I will answer that I was looking for a sort of routine, some kind of habits or stable things.
I will answer that I learned a little of a new language and played poker, karaoke, quiz and table tennis.
I will answer that I discovered the basics of Tai Chi.
I will answer that I had the opportunity to get more deep in a different way of life.
I will answer that I had time to listen to myself, to renew my energies, to get bored, to turn me on and to have fun again.
I will answer that I met some new friends, and that I got to known them for real.
I will answer that there is another place in the world where I can get back anytime, feeling like I was at home.
I will answer that, even if I cannot be sure that Paradise exists, I think I discovered what is – at least for me – its equivalent in this weird corner of the Universe.
In China.

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EVENING – VIDEO
This is why I’ll always love this place.

 

28 November, Yangshuo (China) | Day 180 🇨🇳
Another “Goodbye!”.
Another hard departure.
It happened already in Italy, in different places, then in Zadar, Tuzla, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Prague, Wroclaw, Sifnos, Riga, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk and the Olkhon Island (actually Russia left really deep marks).
Many, many times.
I cannot count them anymore, and I still couldn’t figure out how to handle with that feeling of emptiness that burst out into me every time I leave a place, every time I leave some important persons.

Today I revealed someone that “it is as if every time I let down a piece of my heart. As if, every time, I lose a bigger piece of it. And I don’t think my heart is infinite you know? … will it even come to an end, sooner or later?” That someone reminded me that is not like this, that the lost part comes back, “because when you give a part of your heart, someone else is doing the same, simultaneously, towards you. Everything finds its balance, grows, and your heart gets bigger every time.”

I don’t know where’s the truth.
Anyway these words gave me strength, although that feeling of emptiness still remains and – I already know – will stay with me a few days, before being replaced by some new, vivid, emotions.
Today, however, while I was bringing my bike away from the place which has been my home for over a month, I decided to think about 10 reasons why I should come back one day to the Yangshuo Outside Inn, trying to cheer myself up in a moment I am feeling naturally melancholic:

– It is a wonderful place
– I forgot there the green hat my friend Jiri had given to me
– I lost the last table tennis matches this morning, so I am not the actual champion
– They cook a dish called “Snoozing Dragon (fried eggplant and vegetables)” which is unbelievably great
– I miss already the Yulong River
– The most beautiful fireplace I’ve ever seen is there
– I still have to discover many hiking paths in the surrounding mountains
– My musical jam sessions with Ronald were just at the beginning
– I left there some very good friends

And also because, although inside of me I know it will be hard to see me back there (in a short time, at least), the mere thought of being able to do that, somehow, like all the other times … makes me feel good.
And makes me happy.

[ 28 November 2016 ] Yangshuo (China). Yangshuo Outside Inn. 11 am.
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MAPS

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CHINA (First part): passing the North, Beijing and Guilin (16-22 October)

2011 Views

A night train for a Tolkienian border-town named Zamyn Uud, an electronic cathedral in the middle of nowhere as a “gate”, a rusty truck to reach Erlian bus station, a whole night lying on the cot of a night bus to Beijing, loosing my sight on the contours of Inner Mongolia and trying to combine the dots of the stars, under the tender and reassuring look of my first Chinese moon.
This, the first impact with Great China.
Then a glimpse of Beijing and Guilin, and a slow ride between Guanxi‘s green mystic pinnacles.

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17 October, Beijing (China) | Day 138 🇨🇳
In the beginning it was a night train from Ulaanbaatar to Zamyn-Uud.
Then a local bus to cross the Mongolian – Chinese border after
hours at the controls, loaded like a tartar donkey.
Then a night bus from Erlian, where I laid on a piece of metal dressed as a mattress, only
with a book and the moon, until 3 in the morning.
At that time then, finally, the bus arrived to Beijing and perched at the station waiting for the day, allowing a few extra-sleep fractions in the middle of a monstrous city
that was already beginning its loud morning yawning.
So shortly before 7 I decided it was time to stop thinking about my tiredness and, instead, to start cycling.
The dawn, suddenly, to my amazement, instead
of red – as I would have expected more easily – turned pale yellow.
And, while I was watching at its reflections on the water courses languishing near
the Temple of Heaven, I no longer felt tiredness of any kind.

[ 17 October 2016 ] Beijing (China). 7 am

19 October, Beijing (China) | Day 139 🇨🇳
The day of the Summer Palace, where for centuries the Chinese Emperors
have been coming to “escape” during the hottest months.
I visited it already, 2 years ago, when I was guiding a small business group
which very quickly became a beautiful big group of friends.
The sky was mouse-grey, and we only had a little time to walk around.
Today I had plenty of time, but still the sky was mouse-grey.
Maybe it’s always like this nowadays.
Still I didn’t figure out if it is the devastating pollution of the third-millennium China, or whether it is the ghosts of ancient warriors who rebel even today for the rape suffered
by their wonderful capital, in the recent decades.
However, after I went up, down, aside and along Lake Kunming during 4 hours, after I was stopped a dozen times by various local characters, all interested in taking a picture with a funny-white-faced man, I have officially been awarded as the most colorful character of the whole act.

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SUNSET ?
“Beautiful sky today … isn’t it, dear?”
“Well, if you call it sky, yes, my love. But I guess the last time I saw the real sky here was in 1983 …”

[ 18 October 2016 ] Beijing (China). Summer Palace. 6 pm.

19 October, Beijing (China) | Day 140 🇨🇳
“Have you ever been to Jingshang Park? From there you can have a magnificent view of the Forbidden City and all over Beijing! And, oh the sunsets there!”
Ok, after wandering for hours in the old city’s hutongs, completely by chance, I found the place.
Too bad I could barely see clearly only my shoes.
Ah … these low clouds!

[ 19 October 2016 ] Beijing (China). Jingshang Park. 5 pm.

AFTERNOON
“Pablo, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Sure!”
“Okay, great, you know what I mean.”
“Sure!”
“Good. Are you ready then?”
“Ready for what Bill? I’m sorry but … what are you thinking about? ”
“The same you do, stupid!”
“Oh, yea, ok … Sure!”

[ 19 October 2016 ] Beijing (China). Meishi Street. 3 pm.

20 October, Beijing – Guilin (China) | Day 141 🇨🇳
Beijing was only an intermediate step. Too big, too chaotic, too polluted … I knew I would have stayed there just long enough to organize my trip towards the South, by train.
However something alarmed me.
Shortly before entering China I came to know that
bicycles – even folding ones – are not allowed on Chinese trains.
What to do then?
Take a flight? No way.
Do it all by bike? Yes, sure…
Send my bike with a courier? I didn’t trust the drunken courier who asked me 380 Yuan to deliver it to Guilin.
So I said myself: “Vieri, you’re in China. Ordinary people here travel with 34 different sacks and bags each … so try it too!”
So I did it.
And I discovered that a Brompton dressed as rice pack, on Chinese trains, is also free to blow raspberries.

[ 20 October 2016 ] Train number Z5 Beijing – Guilin. 5 pm.

21 October, Guilin (Cina) | Day 142 🇨🇳
I came to Guilin to start pedaling again.
Tomorrow I will, at least for one day, to get to Yangshuo (will tell you why once I’m there).
And, after Ulaanbaatar and Beijing, to return to a less-polluted air. And at the average of 25 degrees Celsius.
And start finding out what real China is.
Or, at least, what I always imagined it may be.

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22 October, Guilin – Yangshuo (China) | Day 143 🇨🇳
The last time I cycled 80 km, on this trip, I was still in Estonia.
It was September 1st. I left Salacgrīva and I had lunch in Pärnu, then I took a bus to Tallinn.
The streets were as fresh and beautifully panoramic as they could be in Northern Europe.
Today I did again a similar distance. I started from Guilin, I had lunch with a rusty muffin in a place called BaiSha and I ended up in Yangshuo. I’m half roasted by sun and dust, and the streets were a continuous mixture of stones, sand, holes and asphalt.
So after nearly two months, briefly, I came back on pedaling, at least for one day. I did it following more or less the course of Li River, in the Guangxi region, in Southern China.
I do not know yet if all of this is a complete bullshit or something absurdly cool, but I’m having fun and I think in the end, that’s it.

[ 22 October 2016 ] Somewhere between Guilin and Yangshuo (China). 11,30 am.
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MAP

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MONGOLIA: Ulaanbaatar, Terelj Park and Chinese Visa (3-15 October)

1844 Views

When someone asks me “how is Mongolia?”, unfortunately, I cannot answer.
After a surprising month in Russia, in fact, I came in together with the first cold and early winter.
My two weeks in Mongolia were not valleys, lakes, amazing stars, nomadic welcomes and millennial silences, but snow, chaos, traffic, smog, boredom and anxiety for the Chinese Visa which was just a big trouble.
So my Mongolia, at the end, was 11 difficult days in Ulaanbaatar – one of the most terrifying cities I’ve ever met on my way – and two more “escape-days” in Terelj Park, where I had a preview of all the immense splendor of Great Mongolia which … I would have only imagined.

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3 October, Ulan Ude (Russia) – Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Day 124 🇷🇺 – 🇲🇳
Snow on the passes.
Everlasting controls at the Russian – Mongolian border; at least 6 grey different looks at my passport.
A bus that 30 km far away from Ulaanbaatar decides to got punctured,
raising up the journey from 12 to 15 hours.
Semi-burglars instead of taxi drivers, with whom it almost comes to a fight.
A sort of “escape” in a dark and busy city, only to reach my hostel.
Basically, entering Mongolia was not smooth and easy at all.
Creative, for sure.
Something of my karma perhaps says that it is really time to give myself a shave.

[ 3 October 2016 ] 30 kms to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). 7 pm.

4 October, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Day 125 🇲🇳
Useless day.
Transitory and useless day.
It is holiday in China, so I cannot get the info I need about the visa.
Plus it seems that it is not easy at all to get it from here, for a foreigner.
Unforeseen difficulties, out of a sudden. Feeling really uncertain about my journey, for the first time.
Tonight, snow arrived in this grey and lonesome city. A white coating on my melancholy and solitary thoughts.
Those kind of moments which strengthen the personality, they say.
So let it be!
Genghis Khan, help me.

5 October, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Day 126 🇲🇳
All human beings are perfect, for everyone of them was born as a child.
The problem is that, sooner or later, they all grow and, somehow, they forget about it.
A vain search for perfection may last an entire life.
So never stop listening to the kid inside of you, cause only there you may find it … the real, pure, perfection.

[ On the Transiberian ]

6 October, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Day 127 🇲🇳
What do you do when you’re in Ulaanbaatar, the Chinese embassy is still closed for holidays and you don’t know how to spend your time?
Simple. You take your bicycle, go to the mountains until you can get, then you lock the bicycle and start hiking, until you can get, then you put the earphones in your ears, listen to music and start singing Audioslave and Ed Sheeran, looking down, from where you came.
Then, after a while, you go back.

[ 6 October 2016 ] Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). 3,30 pm.

AFTERNOON
Ulaanbaatar is rich with poetic and legendary heroes, traffic and noises,
shady and illegible figures, grey and smog, thin shadows and sharp smiles.
Either you go walking or with a bicycle, you can chance upon any kind of persons,
with any kind of social heritages and background, and any kind of dreams and expectations.
As, for example, the Cow and the Esteemed.

[ 6 October 2016 ] Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). 5 pm.

9 October, Terelj Park (Mongolia) | Day 128 🇲🇳  (*TWO DAYS AGO*)
I disappeared for two days, and now I’ll explain you why.
After 4 nights in Ulaanbaatar, a pseudo-modern city with a few notable attractions and an uncontrolled chaos, stuck here waiting for the Chinese Embassy to re-open (tomorrow, on Monday, after one Holiday-week) and to understand if there is a way to obtain a visa or not, the weekend arrived.

About 70 km away from Ulaanbaatar there is a National Park, called Terelj, where anyone with limited time and money (multi-day tours in the desert are off-limits for me, though they may be absolutely wonderful) has the possibility to have a taste of what real wild Mongolia is: mountains, arid valleys, typical Gers, nomadic families, bonfires, few comforts, horses, camels … and breathtaking beauty (I was told).
So I decided to leave the city, at least for two days.
Internet obviously did not exist, but it wasn’t a big problem at all.
Disappearing, sometimes, can be good.

Two days ago, on a cold afternoon, I took a local bus, which after about 2 hours left me in a village, at the entrance of a hidden valley, where I started pedaling – following some paper signs the owner of my hostel drew for me – to the famous Turtle Rock and then, from there, towards the North, looking for a cheap and at the same time typical “Ger Camp”, known to locals as Mungut Tsokhio.

10 km on the pedals. Only.
Well, yes, nothing epic.

But among the dirt roads filled with stones and holes, those -5° I met at 7 pm, the looming dark above the impervious nature of an incomprehensible country, the low clouds and the snow ambushing me, suddenly I found myself shouting out a “Hey, Vieri! What the f*** are you doing! Move your a** out of here cause I don’t know where those howls in the distance are coming from!”, which was spent loudly and that could hardly tend to something good.

So Terelj National Park welcomed me like that, as I tried to describe here and to show in this photo.

Self-conditioning?
False fears?
I would have found it out the next day.

[ 7 October 2016 ] Terelj Park (Mongolia). 7 pm.

10 October, Terelj Park (Mongolia) | Day 129 🇲🇳  – VIDEO  (*TWO DAYS AGO*)
Waking up in a Ger, i -10° … and Mongolian mountains.

 

AFTERNOON
Two nights and only one full day in the Mongolian lands, but a day full of:
– awakenings between ice and snow
– pedaling and falling in the middle of lonely landscapes
– wild dogs, stocky horses and lazy camels
– basketball playing with kids somewhere in the arid steppe
– smiles and curious glances of the nomads
– aged-animal rocks
– steps and Buddhist proverbs
– prayer wheels and swastikas of ancestral energies
– mutton noodles and boiled bread
– bonfires and frost in a Ger
– religious silence and unearthly naps
– superb valleys and unforgettable colors
– total serenity and dreams crossing

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I just hit him with a snowball.
Or maybe he did it … I don’t remember.

[ 8 October 2016 ] Terelj Park (Mongolia). 9 am.

“Helouuu! Can we go party now?”

[ 8 October 2016 ] Terelj Park (Mongolia). 9 am.

10 October, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Day 131 🇲🇳
After a long crazy day at the Chinese Embassy …

Here’s to Cheating, Stealing, Fighting and Drinking.
If you Cheat, may you Cheat death.
If you Steal, may you Steal a woman’s heart.
If you Fight, may you Fight for a brother.
And if you Drink, may you Drink with me.

[ 10 October 2016 ] Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). 6 pm.

14 October, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Day 135 🇲🇳  – VIDEO

 

15 Ottobre, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) | Giorno 136 🇲🇳 
So thank you Mongolia for your precious days and this beautiful farewell dance.
It’s been quite hard to stay mostly just in Ulaanbaatar, but I had
too much great time in Russia to come here in the right season.
I’m pretty sure someday I’ll come back again to visit some
of your incredible wild countryside, and I’ll be not alone.
But now it’s time to move on, another land is waiting for me.
Now it comes China!

[ 15 October 2016 ] Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). Sukhbaatar Square. 12 am.

STATISTICS MONGOLIA

KM on BICYCLE: 90
KM on AUTOBUS: 480
KM on TRAIN: 660
NIGHTS in HOSTEL: 12
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 0
NIGHTS in TRAIN: 1
EXPENSES: 395 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Tugrik
“GOOD DAY”: “Sain baina uu”
“THANK YOU”: “Bayarllaa”

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MAP

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RUSSIA (Second Part): Siberia and Bajkal Lake (19 September – 2 October)

1983 Views

The first two weeks in Russia had already left indelible signs. St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Transiberian Railway had suddenly moved my journey to another level. Catharsis, out of a sudden.
After 50 hours of wagons and tracks, I finally touched a mythical land: Siberia.
In Novosibirsk, where I would have found summer and the joys of staying in a family.
In Irkutsk, where I would have danced for a few days with the fairy-tale visions from Bajkal Lake.
In Ulan Ude, where my skin would have felt the first cold of the Mongolian steppe, and I would have offered my last “dobroe utro” and “spasibo” before heading South. Towards the belly of Asia.

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19 September,  Novosibirsk (Russia) | Day 110 🇷🇺
Then, at day number 110, after you left Moscow and those autumnal 10 degrees two days before, you arrive in Новосибирск.
Means you are in Novosibirsk, in Siberia.
And it’s summer.  😨

[ 19 September 2016 ] Novosibirsk (Russia). Central Station. 3,30 pm (Moscow time) / 7,30 pm local time.

20 September,  Novosibirsk (Russia) | Day 111 🇷🇺
Yesterday, when I stepped on the Siberian ground for the first time, I was feeling like a bomb.
“Like a thunder!”, as my friend Renato would say.
Then today I saw the Ob. The river.
I wanted to go fishing and to smoke a cigarette.
Suddenly I became very old, wise and I gained 55 years.
Now I’m 87, almost 88.
And I’m this guy.

[ 20 September 2016 ] Novosibirsk (Russia). Me fishing at the Ob River. 5 pm.

21 September,  Novosibirsk (Russia) | Day 112 🇷🇺
A river.
A name.
Two letters.
Ob.

[ 21 September 2016 ] Novosibirsk (Russia). Ob River. 3 pm.

22 September,  Novosibirsk (Russia) | Days 110 / 113 🇷🇺
Novosibirsk, I have to be honest, apart from an impressive Opera House and few other nice places, has not much to offer.
I knew it, but I did not care.
I came here, and I stayed three days, to visit some friends. It’s funny how through Internet you can meet people which in a very short time are able to go deep into your life and to leave indelible signs.
And so Novosibirsk was, for me, the place of many “first times”:

The first time I walked on Siberian land;
The first time I found myself in the very center of Russia (it was measured, I don’t know how, that the central point of this huge country lies right where S. Nicholas Chapel was built, few steps away from Lenina Square);
The first time I dipped my legs up to the knee in a river full of mystic recalls, the Ob;
The first time I tasted a pineapple pizza (a very good one, according to local tastes …), a wild-flowers-green-tea and a very tasty wine coming from a Abkhazia, a State only Russia officially calls State;
The first time I pedaled in a city where cars with the steering wheel on the left go along with many others with the steering wheel on the right (those, the cheapest ones, come from Japan, enter in Vladivostok and get here by trains);
The first time I was hypnotised for two hours by some silent old fishermen’s serenity;
The first time I attended a Ballet (about Pirates), finding myself at times clapping in ecstasy (although I couldn’t say if the show lasted 7 minutes or 14 hours);
The first time I was hosted for days by a Russian family;
The first time a big guy – Nikolai, called Kolya – opened me the doors of his house, without ever having seen me before, welcomed me with a kind, strong handshake and greeted me hugging like a brother, easily erasing our mutual language barriers by taking care of me and by using sincere smiles all the time;
The first time a friend, Irina, was the best company I could ever imagine, showing me the secret places of her city and the depths of her incredible heart, barely keeping back the tears as we had to say “goodbye” and storing in me a treasure of true imperishable memories;
The first time a Russian girl, a little Siberian princess named Viktoria, was happy to leave me her room for three days (eager to sleep again with her parents), to give me a drawing made with dry leaves and to ask me to sing her a song before goodnight, after hearing me singing Brian Adams in the car and deciding to fall in love with my voice;
The first time, pushed by three beers, I said “OK” to her wish, I turned on my computer, I shyly waited Viktoria, Irina and Kolya to go to their bed and to turn off the light, and tried to sing a song for them, shivering at the beginning and then, feeling the vibrant passion coming from that kind of special private public, as invaded by a fire I never perceived before, singing loud – together with them – all the final “lai la lai” you find at the end of “the Boxer”, by Simon & Garfunkel.

Novosibirsk, I have to be honest, has not much to offer. But I didn’t care, and for me it has been and always will be, truly, unforgettable.

[ 21 September 2016 ] Novosibirsk (Russia). 9 pm.

23 September,  Train Novosibirsk – Irkutsk (Russia) | Day 🇷🇺
30 hours on a Russian train. Again.
And that’s my face.

[ 23 September 2016 ] Somewhere on the Trans-Siberian Railway. 3 pm.

24 September,  Bajkal Lake (Russia) | Day 115 🇷🇺 – VIDEO
Bajkal Lake at first sight!

 

EVENING
Where the hell am I?
Baikal lake or in a Mad Max movie?!

[ 24 September 2016 ] Kuzhir, Olkhon Island (Russia). 6 pm.

25 September,  Bajkal Lake (Russia) | Day 116 🇷🇺 – VIDEO
Gentle Siberian breeze …

 

AFTERNOON
So, the story goes more or less like this.
Somebody knows that, since I left, Lake Baikal was for me one of the mandatory places of this trip, one of the stages I really wanted to touch.
My favorite book – “In the Siberian Forests” by Sylvain Tesson – was written here and, since the time I red it, a great desire to visit these lands took advantage on me. This is why I was happy when Russia granted me a visa to enter, about one month ago.

From Irkutsk, then, I took a 7-hour transfer to the Olkhon Island, and it’s from here that I’m writing these letters.
Unfortunately – or fortunately – air is pervaded by the smoke of some burning forest a hundreds of km away from here and hides everything, permeating the environment and preventing the view of the mountains and those blue skies Buryatia is famous of, in normal conditions.
But anyhow, it doesn’t rain since weeks and this is what fate set apart for me.

It is not necessarily a bad thing, because due to this haze I have the feeling of being in another world.
In another dimension, as in fact it seems to be when you step on this strange land, imbued with shamanistic beliefs and visions which count thousands of years.

Today I went up to the north of the island, and I lost myself in scenes I could also meet in some kind of gothic tales or fantasies of a young – as I imagine him – Genghis Khan (legend says that his mother was born here). Among many others, I selected 1 here for today.
I hope you like it, and that it may manage to convey the feelings that I just finished writing in this post.

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26 September,  Bajkal Lake (Russia) | Day 117 🇷🇺 – VIDEO
A Shaman?
Nope.
Just a stupid ex – swimmer.
The day nunber 117 is the day I went into the Baikal Lake!

 

POMERIGGIO
In almost 33 years of life, very few times I was lucky enough to put my eyes and to breathe in such incredible places like this.

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27 September,  Bajkal Lake – Irkutsk (Russia) | Day 118 🇷🇺
After three days of visions, crystal clear water, mystical mists and hard cold,
I came back to civilization in Irkutsk.
Last farewell to Olkhon Island could only be at dawn, with a promise to return one day, sooner or later.
Maybe in winter.
Aware that nothing will change, as it has been happening, in this land, since over 25 million years.

[ 27 September 2016 ] Olkhon Island (Russia). 6 am.

28 Settembre, Irkutsk (Russia) | Giorno 119 🇷🇺
I have met many of them, since the day I left.
And since I have memory, to tell the truth.
I’m talking about those people who, when you ask ’em “Are you ready?”, always answer, ideally believing to be able to dispel any kind of doubt:

“Always!”
or
“I was born ready!”

I tend to smile – or perhaps I should say to snigger – to this type of persons.
Especially to those which are not saying it only to play some kind of irony within themselves.
Not that I even think that my answer is perfect, but certainly it is much more credibile.
And it suits me, at least.

“Are you ready?”
“Never. But I’ll try it anyway.”

[ 25 September 2016 ] Kuzhir, Olkhon Island (Russia). 6 pm.

29 September, Irkutsk (Russia) | Day 120 🇷🇺
After I lost my senses – and dreamed, for almost four days – near the Baikal Lake, two nights ago I came back to a better known form of civilization, in Irkutsk.
Yesterday, however, as I woke up, I just wanted to spend the entire day
in my hostel … and that’s exactly what I did.
Reading, cooking, hearing music, doing the laundry, writing, having long conversations
and little else were my varied pastime.
I didn’t feel the need to do something more, cause actually there was none.
Also, to be honest, I didn’t think that Irkutsk – after all the visions I had in Olkhon Island – could be able to surprise me.
But then today I went out.
And I found out that even Irkutsk, regardless, is not that bad at all.

[ 29 September 2016 ] Irkutsk (Russia). 5 pm.

30 September, Irkutsk (Russia) | Day 121 🇷🇺
POST: OLKHON ISLAND

[ 27 September 2016 ] Olkhon Island (Russia). 7 pm.

1 October, Train Irkutsk – Ulan Ude (Russia) | Day 122 🇷🇺
Date: October 1st.
Time: 11 am.
Temperature: -1° C.
Meteo: Snow.
Considerations: Very good.

[ 1 October 2016 ] Trans-Siberian Railway, somewhere after Irkutsk (Russia). 11 am.

TRANSIBERIAN
The first stage, St. Petersburg – Moscow in 11 hours, was on a night train and passed away smoothly.
The second one, Moscow – Novosibirsk in 49 hours, was a cathartic experience I will never forget.
The third one, Novosibirsk – Irkutsk in 35 hours, was extremely boring and I couldn’t wait for it to end.
The fourth one, Irkutsk – Ulan Ude in 8 hours, having the Baikal on the left and the Buryatian mountains fresh with their first snow on the right, I really hoped it could last forever.

[ 1 October 2016 ] Trans-Siberian Railway, between Irkutsk and Ulan Ude (Russia). 3,30 pm.

2 October, Ulan Ude (Russia) | Day 123 🇷🇺
After 30 days, my Russian Roulette is coming to an end.
Tomorrow, another Country.
Tomorrow, Mongolia.
So I thought the last day here should be spent trying to get used to what my next future will be.
Took my bicycle and went up the highest hill in Ulan-Ude, to Lysaya Gora, to breathe some kind of new Buddhist air.
The first in line.
Russia, I’ll be missing you.
But this is not a goodbye.

[ 2 October 2016 ] Ulan-Ude (Russia), Lysaya Gora. 2 pm.

STATISTICS RUSSIA

KM on BICYCLE: 240
KM on AUTOBUS: 1000
KM on TRAIN: 6520
NIGHTS in HOSTEL: 21
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 3
NIGHTS in TRAIN: 4
EXPENSES: 824 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Rubles
“GOOD DAY”: “Dobroe Utro”
“THANK YOU”: “Spasibo”

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MAP

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LETTER FROM RUSSIA (Train Moscow-Novosibirsk, 18 September 2016)

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 “Hi Mom,

Today is not a beautiful day, and I’ll tell you why.

I’m on a dirty-old-rotten-Russian train, heading Siberia, since more than 24 hours, and I’m bored.
I red, wrote, slept, red and wrote again, but still I’m super bored.
In Argentina – maybe you remember – I was on a bus straight for 48 hours, but that time Davide was also there and there were other people to talk to.
Here I am alone, and no one understands me.
The girl who “manages” the coach smiles a lot and is very kind, but she also doesn’t know even a single word in English.

I have more 25 hours in front of me, and really I do not know how to use them.

I could be there with you today, welcoming Grandpa as he’s back home, but I’m here instead, in a Russian town called Druzhinino, waiting for the tracks to start flowing again beneath me.
I could sit at your table and taste Aunt Franca’s lovely dishes, and instead I ended last night my plastic-roasted chicken and today I am going to feed myself on chips, cookies, nuts and some other imperial lust I will buy from street vendors between few “Da” and “Niet” I’ll not understand.
I could drink a very good wine with Dad, Uncle Vale and Aurora, and instead I’m going to cheer alone with some Sifnos-wild-sage tea and stale beer closed in plastic bottle I found yesterday in Moscow.
I could lie down on the couch at home to make a nap, and instead I’ll stay on my little cot, dressed with hat and sweater because of a draft that blows right by my window and breathed all night long a cold music down my neck.
I could go to the bar to watch Inter – Juve, and instead it will look for updates in the rare moments I have internet, hoping Dybala will score 3 times and imagining your disappointment like it was on May 5th some years ago.
I could play with Andrea and Giulia, have a good time with Elisa, Cristina and Cristiano, or drink a beer with my friends, and instead I’ll try to dodge my vagon-mates dangling feet until it gets dark and I fall asleep.

Sometimes I go at the window and look outside, like stoned, even for an hour, just to spend time. Mostly it rains or it’s grey all over. Russia is mainly flat and I can see nothing but woods. Many, many, many woods.
Sometimes I also spot few coloured roofs and then some villages all covered with cold and sorrow, you could barely imagine someone could live there.

So, yes, today is not a beautiful day.

Then I think about where I’m going and why I’m doing this, and cannot get an answer from myself.
I just know that I have to go, at least for a while still.
Just for going? Yes, maybe just for going.
Or maybe cause I don’t know what else I could do now.
I sacrificed so much of my loves, of my savings, of my projects, to be here, and I will not stop now. Not yet.

All those “I could” for now remain thoughts which I am holding tight in a corner of my heart; they are supporting me, giving me strength and will return to reality soon.
But still I have much to discover, to understand, to share and to learn … so please excuse me if I’m not there with you today.

Today, Mom, it’s a beautiful day, and I’ll tell you why.
Cause being here, right now, in this moment, makes me happy.

Thank you for thinking about giving me birth, as I am, 33 years ago.
And for always being with me, ever since.

Vieri”

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RUSSIA (First Part): Saint Petersburg and Moscow (4-17 September | Days 95-108)

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After wandering in Old Europe for over three months, it was time to cross a big border.
A morning bus took me to the edge of Tallinn and Estonia, and then towards the beginning of a totally unknown world; a world that would have turned out to be an extremely interesting, varied and complicated one, but that would have also given me some deep sighs of real adventure.
After longing for her and dreaming about her for a long time, there she was.
Finally, it had come: Russia.

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4 September,  Saint Petersburg (Russia) | Day 95 🇷🇺
It had been really moody and bad tempered, Russia.
It made me suffer a lot, Russia.
But she also welcomed me with a brushstroke.
Russia.

[ 4 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). Ligovskiy Prospekt. 5 pm.

NIGHT
First impressions, at night: small and bad.

[ 4 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). Aleksandrovsky Sad and St. Isaac’s Cathedral. 10,30 pm.

5 September,  Saint Petersburg (Russia) | Day 96 🇷🇺 – VIDEO
Am I in Russia on in Greece?  😨 😱


They say is beautiful.
They call it the Venice of the North.
They believe it has an interesting history and there are some stunning buildings, views, women and skies.
Really, I don’t know why.
Kidding, of course.
I’m overwhelmed by Beauty all around in this place.
That’s why today I took it slow and visited just one church and a park to have a nap on.
And anyway, one thing is sure.
The best “Church Name” Award ever goes to that one at the end of the canal in this picture:
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.

[ 5 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). Nevskiy Prospekt. 2 pm.

6 September,  Saint Petersburg (Russia) | Day 97 🇷🇺
I had already experienced this feeling in other places.
In Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai …
That feeling of being a tiny little piece in the middle of a millions-pieces jigsaw, constantly moving around.
In St. Petersburg I felt it again, and sometimes I was a little scared by thinking about where I am and what there is in front of me.
The second largest city in the largest country in the world.
Oh, yes … it will be really fun to move on.

[ 6 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). Nevskiy Prospekt. 3 pm.

AFTERNOON
For Russians really don’t know how a beautiful park should look like.

[ 6 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). Zayachij Ostrov. 2 pm.

7 September,  Saint Petersburg (Russia) | Day 98 🇷🇺
After yesterday’s almost summer day, today the weather kicked me directly into autumn.
That really “shitty climate” which makes you feel like having 100 teas and postponing everything to tomorrow.
And then … then this.
Saint Petersburg.

[ 7 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). 19,45 pm.

8 September,  Petergof (Russia) | Day 99 🇷🇺 – VIDEO
Petergof Palace live.
Putin should be also somewhere around here to check if everything is alright for tomorrow’s exhibition …


AFTERNOON
“If you go to Petergof Palace, you should wear your best smoking”, they said.
“And what if I don’t even have a jacket?”, I answered.
And anyway it was in Russian, so I couldn’t understand properly.

[ 8 September 2016 ] Petergof Palace and Fountains (Russia). 6,30 pm.

9 September,  Saint Petersburg (Russia) | Day 100 🇷🇺
Reached the day number 100 – yes, guys, 100! – and it ‘s time to go into Russia big stomach.
Tonight a slow and bright train will take me to Moscow,
where it seems that tomorrow there is also a big parade.
Today it was the last day I was, more or less, close to the sea.
I have no idea when and where I’ll see another one, so I thought I should pedal until
the end of St. Petersburg and pay a tribute to the waves.
Ok, Gulf of Finland is not Kamares’s bay in Sifnos.
But it was really worth it anyway.

[ 9 September 2016 ] Saint Petersburg (Russia). Krevstovskiy Island. 5 pm.

10 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 101 🇷🇺
101 Days, not Dalmatians.
And yes, that one back there is the Red Square in Moscow.
And it is touching to see how the whole city dressed in white to welcome me today.
Or maybe I just arrived exactly on the birthday of the city. 859 years today.
I’m almost crying from happiness, can’t you see.

[ 10 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). Kremlin. 10 am.

So, I’m in Moscow since a couple of hours and I already met Masha & the Bear.
The Bear (known also as “little boy”) shows much more enthusiasm than I do.
Masha (little Anja) gave me a special painting instead.
Oh … Russia!

[ 10 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). 12 am.

11 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 102 🇷🇺
Sunday. Rain. Tiredness after yesterday. So today I woke up and I wanted to do nothing.
And that is exactly what I did. Nothing.
Then, at evening, I got hungry.
And somehow I wanted to taste blueberry risotto and chanterelles cooked in olive oil, garlic and parsley.
So at least, even today, I did something.

[ 11 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). My hostel. 7 pm.

12 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 103 🇷🇺
HOW TO CONTINUE?
So, for the first time since I left, I find myself at a crossroads.
I do not know how to continue.
Which way to go, indeed.
Not that I ever had a well-defined program so far, but I certainly knew that, wherever
I was in Europe, in some way I could always change my road easily.
But since I came to Russia, as well as meeting several difficulties due to language barriers, I also started to perceive what distances, roads, streets, paths mean. Because here, once you choose which way to go, it is not so easy “to change what you started”.

So why a crossroads?
Those who have been following this journey from the beginning know that my aim is to reach South-East of Asia using my Brompton and ground transportation.
But there are many possibilities to get there, each of them with good and bad sides.
Here they are.

OPTION A:
Continue on the Trans-Siberian to Irkutsk and then down to Ulan Ude. From there go to Mongolia, in China and towards Hong Kong with and then cycle to Vietnam.
GOOD SIDES: continuity (this was also my initial idea), a chance to see Mongolia and parts of China.
BAD SIDES: visas mostly (it seems I can get the Mongolian one within few days here in Moscow or perhaps even at the border, but there are procedures and then certainly the Chinese one will not be a free ride), cold.

OPTION B:
Train to Vladivostok and then flight to Japan or Korea (there are also ferries, but they are not compatible with my Russian visa expire date). Thence south.
GS: complete the Trans-Siberian Railway, discover Vladivostok (I have been always attracted by this place somehow) and continue through very curious countries.
BS: I should take a flight (which I would like to avoid), costs.

OPTION C:
Once I visit the Lake Baikal, to go back to Novosibirsk and from there get on a train to Astana (Kazakhstan) and then enter Kyrgyzstan.
GS: basically the only one is that I do not need visas (15 days in Kazakhstan and 60 in Kyrgyzstan would be free), therefore travel I could travel free from thoughts.
BS: I don’t know anything about those countries and then what about after Kyrgyzstan?!

For sure OPTION C turns me on a lot (would be a complete adventurous non-sense), but still OPTION A is probably the winning one.
Anyway, I still have a little time to think about it …
The only one thing that is sure, is that within October 3rd I have to move out from big Mother Russia.
We will see what’s next.
Life’s a little game.

Among other things, I forgot to share the fact that Moscow, two days ago, welcomed me like this.

[ 10 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). Moskvoretskiy Most. 8 pm.

AFTERNOON
After I spent the morning trying to understand how to apply for my Mongolian visa, I thought it was time to finally visit the Kremlin.
However, as I always prefer to take it slowly, today I chose the less known one.
Famous Kremlin in Red Square’s little and picturesque brother: Izmailov’s Kremlin.
Here it is.
I was expecting at any moment one of The Warriors to come out
asking me to “come out to play-i-ay”, but nothing.
Only colorful roofs and souvenirs shops. Fair enough.

[ 12 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). Izmailov’s Kremlin. 5 pm

13 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 104 🇷🇺
Yesterday there were about 30 degrees, and a purple evening (really, it was purple).
Today, in the afternoon, out of a sudden, a malefic wind came and changed everything.
Sky, faces, flowers, ducks … everything.
Probably autumn and cold have been officially announced.
And I’m heading Siberia soon with a paper-jacket.
Always better.

[ 13 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). Chistye Prudy. 4 pm.

14 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 105 🇷🇺
Plan A: CONFIRMED

[ 14 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). Mongolian Embassy. 3 pm.

15 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 106 🇷🇺
To change country, to change cities, to discover every day something new, to get excited, to get discouraged, to feel lonely, to feel super, to sweat, to breath, to solve problems, to sit on the grass of a park never seen before, to observe different skies, to listen to strange musics and incomprehensible languages, to meet people, to open up to them instantly without knowing why, to perceive in them the same old energy, to fall in love with their stories, their eyes and their smiles, to embrace them and to say them goodbye, perhaps for the last time.
To see them leaving.
This too … what traveling is.
And for today I’m over and out.

[ 15 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). Kiyevskiy Station. 1,10 pm.

16 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 107 🇷🇺
Moscow welcomed me with a big celebration, music everywhere in the streets
and a special present (little Anja’s drawing).
Moscow gave me colours, chaos, flavours, traffic, a Mongolian visa, rain, poetry,
magic moments and very deep feelings.
At the last day Moscow greeted me with homemade pancakes,
red caviar and a painting somehow inspired by me.
Thanks to Svetlana Aristova and her “The Storyteller”, today Moscow’s circle comes to the end.
I fought a lot in order to enter Russia, but I was sure it was worth the effort.
Now more than ever.

[ 16 September 2016 ] Moscow (Russia). 5 pm.

17 September,  Moscow (Russia) | Day 108 🇷🇺 – VIDEO TRANSIBERIAN RAILWAY

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MAP

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POLAND e BALTIC REPUBLICS: towards Russia (25 August – 3 September)

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Returning to Poland from my short “holiday” in Sifnos, a pleasant surprise was waiting for me: the Russian Visa.
Russia – perhaps unexpectedly – was no longer a mirage, but became reality: I had 9 days to reach its borders (the entrance had to happen on September 4th).
From Warsaw I decided to cut a part of the road – by bus – to Vilnius (Lithuania) and Riga (Latvia), then to continue cycling along the coasts of the Baltic Sea, where I would languidly discover the beauties of the Baltic Republics and where I would got enchanted by two places called Salacgrīva (Latvia) and Tallinn (Estonia).

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POLAND and LITHUANIA

25 August,  Warsaw (Poland) | Day 85 🇵🇱
Back to Poland.
Back to Warsaw, from where I left – abandoning here my bicycle – 11 days ago.
Tomorrow I’ll go to the Russian Visa Center to figure out if I can enter the country or not.
I’m asking myself why still I don’t have any news from them.
But tomorrow I should know.

[ 25 August 2016] Warsaw (Poland). Modlin Airport. 7 pm.

26 August,  Warsaw (Poland) | Day 86 🇵🇱
Many international newspaper were anxious to know it … and, well, Mother Russia said “DA”.
I got the Visa!
Now the going will get tough .. but funny too 😎.

[ 26 August 2016 ] Warsaw (Poland). A little park just close to the Russian Visa Center. 12 am.

VIDEO


28 August,  Warsaw (Poland) | Day 88 🇵🇱
Where can you find a huge stadium with a beach just in front of it?
Italy? Spain? Greece? Portugal? Brasil?
Nope.
In Poland.

[ 27 August 2016 ] Warsaw (Poland). Vistula River. 5 pm.

EVENING
So I’m on a bus heading Lithuania 🇱🇹
Seems that this country and this place called Vilnius does really exist!

[ 28 August 2016 ] Somewhere in northern Poland. 7,45 pm.

STATISTICS POLAND / LITHUANIA

KM on BICYCLE: 45
KM on AUTOBUS: 580
NIGHTS in HOSTELS: 0
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 3
NIGHTS on BUS: 1
EXPENSES: 66 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Euro
“GOOD DAY”: “Labas Rytas”
“THANK YOU”: “Dekoju”

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LATVIA

29 August,  Riga (Latvia) | Day 89 🇱🇻
Should have stayed in Vilnius.
Ended up in Riga, instead.
I’ve always been so bad with Baltic Counties and their Capitals anyway.

[ 29 August 2016 ] Riga (Latvia). Nativity Cathedral. 4 pm.

30 August,  Riga (Latvia) | Day 90 🇱🇻
Today, after almost a month of cycling inactivity, I wanted to ride my bike again.
Northwards, actually.
Towards Estonia.
When I woke up, however, a howling autumn storm made me think that perhaps it was
better to stop in Riga one more day.
I could not do much, apart sheltering myself from wind and rain
in one of those many coffee shops in the city and visiting a couple of museums.
In one in particular – from which I came out quite shocked – I thought on the fact that I struggled so much in order to try to reach Siberia in some way, when up to not so long ago many Latvians saw that land as real hell, a place where many of their beloved ones were deported and have never returned from.
Always assuming that they did not get up from that chair,
after being certainly tortured in many different ways, with an immediate execution sentence.
Spies, friends and relatives betraying each other, captures, interrogations, tortures, imprisonments, captivity in inhuman conditions, convictions, sentences, deportation or death.
Riga’s history is also this one.

[ 30 August 2016 ] Riga (Latvia). KGB Building Museum. 5 pm.

EVENING
Even Riga, at the end, managed to surprise me.
Not only because of this lights, bursting out after a cold, windy and rainy day.
But some stories cannot be told.
I’m leaving the city with some more everlasting memories, and a colourful scarf as a gift.
And today … today it’s time to move on.

[ 30 August 2016 ] Riga (Latvia). Sunset behind Daugava River. 9 pm.

31 August,  Salacgrīva (Latvia) | Day 91 🇱🇻
After more than a month since I cycled the last “big stage”, finally today I’m back pedaling.
At least for a few hours, and for a hundred kilometers.
I do not know if tonight I will camp somewhere on the shores of the Baltic Sea,
or if I will look fore a warmer accommodation in some village on the Latvian coast.
I do not much care about it.
Hence, for the occasion, I dusted off my superhero suit already.

[ 31 August 2016 ] Towards Salacgrīva (Latvia). 3,30 pm.

SUNSET
Greek sunsets, and mostly those ones in Sifnos, are totally unbeatable.
Nevertheless today I could witness that also here in Latvia, on the Baltic Sea, in Salacgrīva, are stunning as well.
The only problem is that, after sunset, the funnies thing you can do
when you travel with your bicycle is puncturing yourself one of your tyres.
To keep you busy, at least.

[ 31 August 2016 ] Salacgrīva (Latvia). Beach. 8,30 pm.

STATISTICS LATVIA

KM on BICYCLE: 140
KM on AUTOBUS: 85
NIGHTS in CAMPING / HOSTELS: 2
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 1
EXPENSES: 100 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Euro
“GOOD DAY”: “Labrit”
“THANK YOU”: “Paldies”

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ESTONIA

1 September,  Salacgrīva (Latvia) – Tallinn (Estonia)| Day 92 🇱🇻 – 🇪🇪
It could be Worse.
It could be Raining.
(Thinking about somebody who passed away a few days ago, Gene Wilder)

[ 1 September 2016 ] Latvia – Estonia Border. 10 am.

VIDEO
Woods, blueberry, mushrooms and wilderness all around, a lukewarm sun and a gentle wind, glimpses on the Baltic Sea and houses coming out from fairy tales, no cars, music and singing.
This is cycletravelling in Estonia.


2 September,  Tallinn (Estonia)| Day 93 🇪🇪
I had already cycled 90 km that day. The last 30, on a straight and endless asphalt tongue, had been boring and I was starting to feel tired. Walls of ancient pines surrounded me on both sides, obscuring the road and the view of the spaces nearby.
Suddenly, as coming out from a seamen rhyme, I saw a Seagull.
He flew out of the forest, silently spreading his wings,
the whole world not caring about him and his languid heartbeat.
He was going in my direction and, for a while, we kept the same speed.
I could swear I caught him as he threw at me a curious look, but maybe I only dreamed it.
I stared at him as he rose up into the sky and disappeared behind
the last leaves of the trees, towards the North.
Released from the spell, I immediately felt a sound. A long, deaf and continuous shout. A glimmer, from a distance, invited me to approach and so I started to push harder on the bike, as if I was driven by some unnatural forces.
When, towards the West, a solitary beach took the place the trees were occupying before,
the shout opened up and released itself all around, winning my ears first and then the entire me.
It was the Baltic Sea, for the first time.
I left the bike at the roadside and ran barefoot on the sand, losing my breath for a few moments.
Annihilated by the senses, I looked for a place to sit down, there on the edge with the waves.
It took me minutes before I started to breathe again with a regular rhythm.
As I returned to me, I started to observe what was all around.
The Seagull was there, and this time he was really looking at me,
with a funny and amazed smile at the same time.
Instead of flying away, he sat at my side.
You can imagine what a surprise it was for me when, perfectly moving his beak, the old Seagull greeted me and said: “Well done, boy. I was not sure you’d been able to intercept the signals and to get the call. You only arrived a little late. Five minutes before and you’d have seen him, the Lord, drawing and singing. He comes here often to do that, when he doesn’t want to think about anything.
But, the same, you can enjoy what he did here, today.”

AFTERNOON
In Tallinn, in Estonia, close to the harbour there is an abandoned prison.
There is a little bar serving local beers and tasty food.
There are benches, sand and old rusty beds.
People come here to talk, to relax, to drink together, to listen to live music,
to look at the ships and to wait for the sunset on the Baltic Sea.
And this is beautiful.
End of the story.

[ 2 September 2016 ] Tallinn (Estonia). Patarei Vangla. 6,30 pm.

3 September ,  Tallinn (Estonia)| Day 94 🇪🇪 – VIDEO
🏊 in the Baltic Sea: done ✔


SUNSET
Serendipity.

[ 3 September 2016 ] Tallinn (Estonia). Harbour. 7 pm.

STATISTICS ESTONIA

KM on BICYCLE: 110
KM on AUTOBUS: 340
NIGHTS in HOSTELS: 3
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 0
EXPENSES: 150 € + Coat 200 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Euro
“GOOD DAY”: “Tere Hommikust”
“THANK YOU”: “Aitäh”

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MAP

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GREECE: a short “holiday” in Sifnos (15-24 August)

1844 Views

It was August 14th, and I was in Warsaw.
In Warsaw I had to wait 10 days before knowing if the Russian Embassy would accept my visa application.
In Warsaw there were 10 degrees.
So I checked how much was for a Warsaw – Athens lowcost flight and – after I left my bicycle by a friend (in order to say then that at least the bicycle would never take a flight during the entire trip), I decided to indulge my desire for a short vacation.
For ten days … I went home. The Greek one.
I went back to Sifnos.

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15 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 75 🇬🇷  VIDEO
Little flashback to 7 hours ago.
Now is really easy to get where the flight brought me and where the ferry will …


SUNSET
When I decided to come here waiting for the answer from the Russian Consulate in Warsaw, I wasn’t sure I did the right choice.
Actually I didn’t remember why last year I loved this place so much, so even
today on the ferry I was thinking a lot about it.
But now … now I remember why.

[ 15 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Kamares. 7,30 pm.

16 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 76 🇬🇷 
I wasn’t posting flower pictures since a lot of time.
And of course.
Because I was not in Greece.

[ 16 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Apollonia. 3 pm.

17 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 77 🇬🇷 
Those two little Frenchie lights able to teach me another way of making memories.

[ 17 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Sunset at Agia Marina / Kamares. 8,20 pm.

SUNSET
Then, out of a sudden, they asked me if, just for one time, I could leave them free to make love unseen …

[ 17 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Kamares. 8 pm.

18 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 78 🇬🇷 
Another day spent imagining what to do in case of my Russian visa would be denied, thinking about the Chief World Systems and about how supremely awful this place is.

[ 18 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Agia Marina. 8 pm.

19 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 79 🇬🇷   VIDEO

Fundamental questions here in Sifnos: sunrise or sunset? Which one is better?

 

Never forget to look at things and let them surprise you. Like a kid does. Always.

[ 19 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Vathi. 6 pm.

20 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 80 🇬🇷  
Dead calm.

[ 20 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Kamares. 8 pm.

21 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 81 🇬🇷  
This is also why I tend to be a morning guy.

[ 21 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Kamares Bay at dawn. 7 am.

22 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 82 🇬🇷  
Batteries at 99%.
Kastro today gave me the big shot.
Guess why.

[ 22 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Kastro. 2 pm.

23 August,  Sifnos (Greece) | Day 83 🇬🇷  
Last day in Sifnos.
Last sunset in Kamares.
Tomorrow I’ll see it on a ferry, going to Athens.
The next day in Warsaw.
And now I feel like when you are 15 and, half asleep, you say your mother:
“Just 5 minutes more mom, then I wake up. Promise.”

[ 23 August 2016 ] Sifnos (Greece). Kamares. 8 pm.

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STATISTICS GREECE

KM on BICYCLE: 0
KM on AUTOBUS: 30
KM on FERRY: 500
NIGHTS in CAMPING / HOSTELS: 11
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 0
EXPENSES: 448 €

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Euro
“GOOD DAY”: “Kalimera”
“THANK YOU”: “Efharisto”

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MAP

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POLAND: Wroclaw and Warsaw, Friends and Consulates (3-14 August)

1685 Views

At the end of the second month of travel, just after crossing the border with Poland over a bus coming from Prague, I decided that it was time for a small break.
August had just begun and I was kindly conquered by the holiday atmosphere surrounding me.
So I visited some very old friends – in Wroclaw, where I would spent ten days – and started preparing all the documentation I needed to apply for the Russian visa outside Italy.
Then, worn out and cold, I left my bicycle in Warsaw for a few days … to fly to a place I would have really loved for sure.

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3 August, Wroclaw (Poland) | Day 63 🇵🇱
In Poland.
Enthusiastic.

[ 3 August 2016 ] Wroclaw (Poland). 3 pm.

4 August, Wroclaw (Poland) | Day 64 🇵🇱
Ok.
So, after more than two months going around like a crazy bullet, after passing 13 countries and uncountable borders, after pedaling for hundreds of kilometers and taking buses and trains for many more, August arrived.
I decided that in August I’ll slow down a little.
There are many things to be prepared, Russia and Asia to be entered, and vacations to be taken.
I know it sounds absurd “taking a break” from a just-started-gapyear, but my mind and body need some rest after all that happened and before what will come.
So I’ll stay for a while in Wroclaw, hosted by some great old friends, and then I’ll do something else (you’ll see what), whilst waiting for the Russian visa.
Anyway, some things are not going to change: beer, friends and sunset are something I will never need to “take a break” from. Never.

[ 4 August 2016 ] Wroclaw (Poland). Mroz / De León Sotelo Carrera Home. 8 pm.

7 August, Wroclaw (Poland) | Day 67 🇵🇱
Un Tato, un Niño y un Tito.
En un Jardín Botánico.

[ 7 August 2016 ] Wroclaw (Poland). Ogród Botaniczny. 12 am.

9 August, Wroclaw (Poland) | Day 69 🇵🇱
More than 2 months on the way with no real plans and following the flow are nothing compared to everything you need to do and present if you are trying to apply for a Russian Visa because you want to enter the country with a folding bicycle, no flights, no prearranged tours and, of course, no plans.
First step, done … will it be enough?

[ 9 August 2016 ] Wroclaw (Poland). 10 am.

11 August, Warsaw (Poland) | Day 71 🇵🇱 – VIDEO
Back in the game!
At least for a couple of days …


12 August, Warsaw (Poland) | Day 72 🇵🇱 | RUSSIAN ROULETTE
oday was the day of the Russian visa application. A never ending story, and still the outcome is unknown as a Juventus – Milan midsummer match.
It all began in May, at the Russian Consulate in Milan. I wanted to start with the visa in my pocket, but when I was asked about the real entry and departure dates, my answer was a big question mark.
So I decided to request it later on the way, somewhere much closer to St. Petersburg, when I could have had a better idea about everything.
Since then I have asked for different kind of help, to receive an invitation (yes, for Russia you need an invitation) either for private visits or working reasons, but it would have been too long and difficult.
The only solution, therefore, was to go for a normal 30-days-tourist-visa.

Simple, yes. If you organize everything.
If you book the hotels, if you plan a route, if you receive an invitation (paying) from hotels or from any specialized agencies, if you print all the papers without missing any comma and doing it in the proper size, if the photos fulfill the requirements and if you purchase an insurance (with original documents) in order to cover perfectly the time you are going to spend in the Big Mother.
Done, everything. The last part only with Sandra’s help, my friend who lives in Poland and therefore could sign the insurance I bought after a one-hour-linguistic-battle with Ewa, the energetic 50 year-old broker lady from Generali Wroclaw.
Everything? Sure?

I arrive in the early morning in Warsaw Visa Center, knowing that surprises can always be around the corner, even when you think you’re done with everything.
Artiom welcomes mr (“your Artemio,” he says, knowing it as he had been living for one year in Italy), a polite, prepared and considerably younger than me guy.
He controls every inch of paper and states that there is an error in the invitation, cause it is displayed a double entry and not a single one.

“A system bug” – I reply, knowing perfectly I asked the agency a single entry.
“I’m sorry, but this unfortunately in Russian means double entry. You should change the invitation … and then the paper.” – He explains to me, sincerely sorry.
“Can you do it here?”
“Yes. If you remember the password you used to generate it on the system.”
“Here it is!” – I answer boldly, happy cause I wrote it down and found it immediately in my agenda.
Half an hour struggling between PC and protocols, and I got the new form.
“Everything okay?” – I ask seraphic.
“Well, not really. The problem is that the invitation should be changed also, because even there it is written that you asked for a double entry. If we send these documents, your request will be rejected 100%.”

I think for a while.
Then I call the online agency which sent me the invitation and, to my amazement, after 10 minutes I have a new and correct copy via email. For the trivial cost of a international call to Russia, via mobile phone.
But now I have to print it.
I go back in the street, jump on the bike and look for the first available internet cafe. Then I remember that the guy I bought the photos from has a printer and can make me a favor, and that is how it happens.
So after another thrilling hour of I’m back in front of Artiom.

“Now everything should be ok, right?” – I whisper.
He reads and checks everything for another 15 minutes and then I hear another “Well, not really.”
“What’s wrong now?”
“The hostels you have in the voucher. Cities and names are ok, but they also want the addresses…”
I find out that I’m not yet a Zen monk when I burst out into a “But what the f*** is this? Really? Those reservations are real and effective, those hostels are there and they won’t go anywhere!”
“I know, you’re right, but they also want the addresses. Just as it is your application can be rejected at 50% … it depends on how the guys from the Embassy wake up that day.” – Artiom tries to calm me down.

Suddenly I feel relaxed. As if he had said the magic words. Everything appears now clear and simple.

“Ok. Then, Artemio, let’s do this. You were really kind and helpful, but I’m tired of all this waste of time. I will not call for a new voucher for the third time just because of this silly thing. We will proceed with these documents, let’s play Russian Roulette. Fate will decide, hoping that Mr. Sergej Whatever will wake up in a good mood that day. I’m not forced to go to Russia. I’ve done all I could and I would really love to know the country and its people, but now we’ll see if the Big Mother wants me too or not.”
Artiom smiles.
“All right. However, for some reason, I have the feeling everything will be fine. ”
“Do not say it too loud … in Italy we are quite superstitious! But thanks for your help. It will be fine anyway, what will be will be. When’s the verdict? ”
“In 10 days. On August 23rd we will know.”

So thanks Artemio.
Now I just have to figure out how to spend the next 10 days
and see if my egg-shaped-little-Vlad face will help or not.
Maybe I will pass them in a park, with ducks, drawing lotus flowers on the sand
and trying to learn the art of inner peace. Or maybe not.
What will be, will be.

[ 12 August 2016 ] Warsaw (Poland). 2 pm.

13 August, Warsaw (Poland) | Day 73 🇵🇱
Yesterday, after all the battles regarding the Russian visa, I told I would be looking for the Zen-me for the next few days.
So today I met my pagoda, my brook, my little shore, my green, my ducks.
Now I only have to find the sand to start drawing my lotus flowers with a bamboo stick …

[ 13 August 2016 ] Warsaw (Poland). Lazienkowski Park. 11 am.

14 August, Warsaw (Poland) | Day 74 🇵🇱
My passport is stuck at the Russian Consulate.
I have to wait 10 days.
I have to keep searching for my Zen Satori.
I have to find some sand.
The temperature in Warsaw is 15 degrees.
That’s why I’m at the airport. With no bicycle.
Where I’m going to … I’ll tell you tomorrow.
But you can start betting.

[ 14 August 2016 ] Warsaw (Poland). Modlin Airport. 4,30 pm.

SUNSET
Anyway, Warsaw’s “Goodbye, see you in 10 days” was pretty fine.

[ 14 August 2016 ] Warsaw (Poland). Modlin Airport. 8 pm.

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STATISTICS POLAND

KM on BICYCLE: 110
KM on AUTOBUS: 485
NIGHTS in HOSTELS: 3
NIGHTS in HOSPITALITY: 9
EXPENSES: 397 € (including Russian Visa)

CURIOSITIES

CURRENCY: Zloty
“GOOD DAY”: “Dzien Dobry”
“THANK YOU”: “Dziekuje”

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MAP

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