10.04.03 day 1: Møn DANMARK > S of Rostock DEUTSCHLAND
Brian & i find a perfect sleeping stash upon finding ourselves stranded in a deserted North German town. a cubbyhole under a loading dock, complete with a futon we found up against the back wall! (it was a furniture / bedding store...) yes!!!
11.04.03 day 2: > Berlin DEUTSCHLAND
we arrive to find out that the two people i plan to visit (Dave & Stine) not only know each other but are virtually in the same band! Stine's sister Veronica was actually the mesmerizing guest vocalist and Dave the guitarist, but i was hoping to track Veronica down too, so it was still pretty crazy. tiny tiny world...
12.04.03 day 3:
anti-war demonstration, German style! Brian & Lou & i (thanks Lou!!!). ja tak. many, many of us - e-mail me if any of you see how many we were in the press... then saw The Hollow Men play - see day 2.
13.04.03 day 4: > Rzepin POLAND
farewell to Brian in my beloved Polish village - thanks Brian! :P
14.04.03 day 5: > Wroclaw POLAND
15.04.03 day 6: > Trstena SLOVAKIA
full moonlit night by the Tatra mountains... :P
16.04.03 day 7: > Arad ROMANIA
the Tatras by sunlight... then a ride with a Romanian yoghurt drink all the way from the Slovak-Hungarian border to the Hungarian-Romanian border! cheesy techno drudgery on the radio, but quite an experience nevertheless... then my first ride in Romania, and i quote: "America - SHIT!!!"
17.04.03 day 8: > Bucuresti ROMANIA
a whole (free ride on a) bus to myself across Romania, through sweeping mountainscapes...
18.04.03 day 9: > Veliki Tarnovo BULGARIA
hitching a ride on a horse-drawn cart out of Bucuresti... :P then meeting two prostitutes by the side of the road in Bulgaria - Ms. Give & Ms. Take. the latter takes my 11 Swedish kroner radio from Brian (in return for nothing, i might add), and the former gives me 20 Danish kroner when she hears i'm Danish! end the day by sleeping in my glorious mountainside cave outside Veliki Tarnovo...
19.04.03 day 10: > Edirne TURKEY
a heartwarming ride from my Bulgarian artist friend, stopping by a museum to make me a 'TURKEY' hitchhiking sign. then getting ripped off (for $4! oh no!) by an otherwise seemingly trustworthy Turkish bloke. then a kick ass ride from our (Turkish) man in Bulgaristan, then a super hyggelig meal with Turkish truck driver #2.
20.04.03 day 11: > Istanbul TURKEY
my first e-contact with the rest of the world! off to Istanbul on the bus (sources tell me that it's a much better idea than hitching in Turkey...)
21.04.03 day 12: > Goreme TURKEY
life goes on as usual here in Istanbul - you would never know that the next country over is war-torn & chaotic. off to Goreme, then maybe Van tomorrow... got in touch with UNICEF in Ankara! but apparently there are no Iraqi refugees in Turkey. So Iran? i have UNICEF's # there now...
22.04.03 day 13:
Goreme! what an amazing place. rock outcroppings and pointed towers and 'fairy chimneys' like you would never beieve. i'm sleeping in a cave in one of them tonight - truly an unforgettable place to spend the night. went for a walk in Swords valley today... wow. can't get through to UNICEF in Tehran, and apparently getting a visa there is a nightmare, so i've decided to head to Syria instead - it should be easier.
23.04.03 day 14: > Nusaybin TURKEY
took the not very far bus trip to Kayseri to change to a *very* far bus trip to Nusaybin on the Syrian border. breathtaking mountain ranges on the way though... busked for a bit during my layover, singing with a sign reading 'Iraki Bay & Bayan' (Iraqi Men & Women). didn't collect too much money, but did collect a lot of suspicious stares! as the cliche says, it's the thought that counts, no?
24.04.03 day 15:
finally arrived at el border town at 5:00 am. walked to the border & camped out for 4 hours until they opened it. so much for my idea that Syria would be easier! maybe a bit easier... i was told (contrary to what i hear the protocol is in Western Syria) that i either need to return to Ankara (a huge bus trip - forget about it) or they can fax Damascus and if that works, it usually takes 2 days. i pleaded for them to try and get it for me a.s.a.p. (like today for example) so i can be on my way to help Iraqi refugees... so, at 15:00, they told me to head back into Turkey & come again tomorrow morning. :( so please, everyone, cross yr fingers for me or say a prayer or toss a rag doll into the air or something!
ended up finding a patch of grass in someone's yard where i could lay my sleeping bag for the night. i awoke late at night to find a man looking at me while talking on his mobile. i tried gebrochenly to humbly explain my situation, hoping that he wouldn't mind. he then went inside only to come out with another man and a woman a bit later, and invite me to sleep inside in their entree instead. i *love* Kurdish hospitality!!!
25.04.03 day 16:
still stuck in Nusaybin. awoke to a very hyggelig breakfast with my hosts, then back to el border. maybe my visa will go through tonight, in shah Allah... or tomorrow? another day at the border gates, watching Kurds be pressed between two sets of wire gates. at least i'm getting a feel for how refugees must be treated, penned in between metal gates like a flock of animals. tempers flare, like they will in such conditions, and border guards & Kurds start yelling at each other, pushing & grabbing, and throwing each others' flimsy garbage bags of possessions over the fence et al. not a very pretty sight... but then again, pretty sights aren't what i came to see.
26.04.03 day 17: > Silopi TURKEY
another day at the races... back to the metal fences & barbed wire for another round. and the winner is...? don't ask me who the winner is! at 15:00 the border closed up shop as did my patience for the Syrian border authorities. so i headed to Silopi to give the Iraqi border a go - refugees in Syria are a question mark anyway, while if & when i get into Iraq i'm sure there will be plenty of dislaced Iraqis to help out. encountered more boundless Kurdish hospitality... found UNHCR's office here, but nothing going on there until Monday morning. so we'll see, in shah Allah! walked to the checkpoint outside of town manned by Turkish soldiers, but they won't let me cross into el war-torn land without some kind of 'card', which i will hopefully get from UNICEF or UNHCR or the like...
27.04.03 day 18:
partially cloudy in Silopi, and what do you know! there go a bunch of cows down the street! this place is great. authentic doesn't even begin to describe it. so i found a cheap hotel last night, so i'm holed (quite an accurate description actually!) up here until tomorrow at least... i *finally* contacted someone from UNICEF in Amman today which put me in the best mood i've been in for who knows how long. he gave me a contact to UNICEF here in Silopi, and her response that she doesn't really know how i could help them right now ('but thanks for asking! gee, that's swell! we'll let you know!) brought my spirits back down again. oh well - some ecstatic minutes of hope & possibility were much appreciated. and hopefully in shah Allah when i go to UNHCR's offices here tommorrow morning i'll be met with nothing but good news!
28.04.03 day 19:
woke up & headed to UNHCR's office to be met with - surprise! - disappointment. it seems they don't have much to do after Gulf War part II (as opposed to Gulf War part I), nor do they have much info on the situation in neighbouring countries. paid a visit to UNICEF (they're in the same building, but don' communicate with each other - charming), but no go there either. spent hours on the web trying to find *some* NGO i can get involved with to no avail. out of sheer frustration i figured i would walk to the police checkpoint again & see if there isn't some boss somewhere who can give me permission to cross the border. this time they looked at my passport & said 'no problem'! i hastened back to the hotel, through my clothes et al in my backpack & hurried back before they changed their mind. they checked my baggage, said 'o.k.', and then told me to waot a few minutes. after which they kindly gave me a ride to police HQ where i was told that the border is closed with a capital C. but that i can try again tomorrow. go figure. then happened to meet an Iraqi who has been living in Sweden & we made plans to take a taxi across the border tomorrow morning. ooh la la! so please include me in yr prayers tonight...
29.04.03 day 20:
yes. here i am still. barely slept due to anticipation of my big attempt to cross the border. headed over to my Iraqi friend's hotel (who has been living in Sweden for the past 20 years) so we could share a taxi to his homeland. as i waited i realized that what they were showing on TV was a documentary about the building of Oeresundsbroen, the extremely long bridge between Denmark & Sweden. here i was, from Denmark, waiting to share a taxi with him, from Sweden! of all things they could have shown on TV! so we climbed into the taxi, he & i & another Kurd who has been living in Germany. we drove up to the first checkpoint (yes, the one which i know very well) and they convinced the Turkish soldier to let us go through!!! i was ecstatic. we drove the 14 km to Habur, the border town, past luscious green fields fading into incredible, rugged mountainscapes, the sun beaming down on it all. yes! we also passed two enormous but empty refugee camps - rows and rows and rows of tents. apparently they housed thousands of refugees after Gulf War I, but not this time - now they're busily being used by the military (for who knows what - military things, i figure). we arrived at 2 more checkpoints at which my companions managed to squeeze me through amidst warnings that i wouldn't be permitted to make it all the way across the border. and sure enough, at the final checkpoint, we were told that a fax giving me clearance was necessary. s o c l o s e . . . after discussing back & forth with the border officials for a while, i caught a ride back to Silopi & called the Danish Embassy in Ankara about getting said fax. they asked me to request it in writing & explain my situation, which i did. their reply was that the Turkish Foreign Ministry finds it odd that i'm trying to cross a border which is closed except for established NGOs & established journalists assembled into established groups & established tacos & established dungheaps & establ... sorry, i'm getting a bit carried away here. they also gave me a phone number to some Foreign Ministry guy in charge of humanitarian projects, but he of course wasn't in today. so tomorrow, tomorrow, i love you, tomorrow, yr always...
30.04.03 day 21: > Gaziantep TURKEY
i called our Foreign Ministry friend, who was of course in a meeting, but his second secretary on alternate Thursdays told me they simply can not give me permission to cross the border without me being part of an NGO. so i tried our UNICEF friend one last time and no dice. 'enough!', i said, and boarded a bus towards Hatay/Antakya, where one can apparently cross into Syria upon purchase of a visa at the border. in shah Allah!!! my destination is the El Hol refugee camp in the NorthEastern part of the country...
1.05.03 day 22: > Al Hasakeh SYRIA
sunny weather - more Western vibes here than in Eastern Turkey... hope you all have stunning & unprecedentedly enormous pro-peace anti- imperialism demonstrations today whereever you are! og isaer FredsVagter - haaber i har en rigtig hyygelig dag & aften - hils!
i made it into Syria!!! finally! the visa is only for 15 days, but oh well... el head honcho here, Assad, is everywhere. his picture is even plastered over roadsigns, so you can't read which town yr driving towards! incredible. it's either Assad Jr., his dad Assad Sr., or Jr.'s brother i believe, a toughie with sunglasses. i thought Turkey was extreme with Ataturk everywhere, but Syria gives me more of an eerie feeling. maybe because Ataturk has been dead for a while now, but Assad is still alive & in charge. my ride across the border put the petal to the metal & we sped through the deserted landscape, he & the guy in the backseat with cigars blazing...
2.05.03 day 23: > Abu Kemal SYRIA
my first ride on the back of a motorbike! what a blast. many here wear their 'Antifada scarves' (or whatever those Palestinian-style things are called) wrapped around their entire head with only a slit for their eyes - spooky! i finally found the refugee camp at El Hol - what a sense of triumph! UNHCR officials told me to wait in a tent at the entrance for the camp manager - i needed to get security clearance to enter the camp. i sat & waited a while with my very hospitable Syrian military hosts, drinking tea. an engineer who was proficient in English appeared & delivered the message from the camp manager - thanks but no thanks. apparently the Syrian officials won't even allow NGOs which don't belong to the UN umbrella to help out. so someone like me with no attachment to the UN was a no go. : ( yet he kindly recommended that i could try the Red Cross / Red Crescent camp along the Iraqi border at Abu Kemal. oh well... the cities & towns i see here - whoa boy. everything is grey & bleak. speeding down the road in our dolmus/minibus the driver suddenly hit the squealing brakes & we careened into a donkey (i believe)! some large animal which made a loud thud upon impact & caused quite a dent apparently. luckily our human load was fine (including small children i might add). one thing i love here is that people sit outside - in front of their houses, in front of their shops, in omnipresent plastic chairs... communal life! out of doors! yum.
3.05.03 day 24: > Aleppo SYRIA
arrived at the windswept desert landscape-located refugee camp at Abu Kemal / El Bokamal to a less courteous reception than at El Hol. the man in charge informed me that they couldn't accept volunteers unless they were approved by the head office in Damascus. 'do you need more volunteers though?', i asked. 'is it worth it for me to go to Damascus?' actually they didn't - they had more than enough. oh well! he said that i could maybe be useful in Iraq & that the border was open. then he made a call & reconfirmed what i had gleaned previously, that the border is actually closed. and apparently there is no direct route from there to Eastern Jordan, but one needs to loop back to Damascus. so, after trying Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, it became clear to me that it was time to begin 'Iraqi Refugee Voyage phase two' - the retreat. no pun intended - i figure if i can't help the Iraqis in an exterior way, i can help them in an interior way by praying for them & meditating for them. and for all of us - for peace. the icing on the cake: i had dragged my old pair of boots & a flashlight from Egypt & the money i had collected busking in Kayseri for thousands of kilometers to donate them to Iraqis, yet the head of Camp El Bokamal wouldn't let me leave them there. i could see Sudanis wandering around the camp who i'm sure would be grateful for them, but no. apparently i needed to give them to the Syrian government head honcho in charge of the region. i was then given a ride into town to his office, past a sign which read 'HAPPY JOURNEY' and made me shed a few tears. beneath numerous pictures of the Assad cult of personality, i was told again that crossing into Iraq wasn't possible. i set down boots, flashlight, and $ in his authority, but he didn't want responsibility for them either! i explained that that's what Mr. Red Crescent had told me to do, and left. on my way out the door, Syrian head honcho guy's lackey came running with them in his hands. i tried with sign language to make myself clear, and hopped on a dolmus/minibus to the bus station. as i was on the verge of leaving town, the lackey guy had the nerve to appear & force them on me again! they ended up sitting in the police office there at the bus station, and i think serve as a powerful symbol of how much my attempt (and that of other NGOS, etc.) to help Iraqi war refugees has been shat on in the region. alas...
4.05.03 day 25: > Konya TURKEY
so now i'm in Antakya, Turkey, en route to Greece. i figure i'll retrace my steps to the isle of Patmos which i visited some years ago. it's apparently there that John received the Book of Revelations, so hopefully the monastery there will let me 'retreat' there for a while in contemplation, meditation, and prayer. if any of you know of other monasteries or the like in the area which might be conducive to IRV phase two, please let me know...
5.05.03 day 26: > Skala, Patmos GREECE
a 24 hour bus ride later (whoa boy), i slithered off my luxury bus in the Turkish port city of Bodrum. no way to the Greek isles except for an *expensive* 1 hour ferry to Kos, but that evened out with the *super-cheap* bus trip preceding it, so oh well. lay on the beach on Kos until my ferry to... Patmos!
6.05.03 day 27: > Hora, Patmos GREECE
arrived while the stars were still out & camped out on the coast, waking to a gorgeous sunrise. i love Greece... climbing up the mountainside towards the monastery, i stopped to rest on the way up, and thought about how if St. John's monastery didn't work out, i would head to the spectacular Rila monastery in Bulgaria. just then a monk walked by on a wooded footpath just below the street which i hadn't noticed. a sign! don't know if for St. John's or for Rila, but we'll see. visited the actual Apocalyptic cave for the first time where John received his 'transmission' - i can recommend it. then ascended up to the monastery itself where i was told to wait to talk to one of the monks in charge. waited in the courtyard & then indulged in two bouts of prayer. was then told that the abbot was the man to ask, which i first could do in two or three days when he returned on the ferry. okay! unrolled el sleeping bag in a terrace near by.
7.05.03 day 28:
awoke to yet another soothing sunrise, then prayed for a grueling 5 and a half hours. first time i've ever managed that! went for an expedition around the coast, climbing around the jagged rock faces until i found my own private beach to bathe at... and back to the terrace.
8.05.03 day 29: > the Aegean Sea GREECE
today was some kind of celebration of the ascendance of St. John, complete with beautiful singing & chanting, heaps of families, aromatic lavender strewn across the courtyard, and free, delicious 'cake' for everyone. alright! the volunteer at the monastery - my liason - informed that the abbot's answer was no. the last guest they had was apparently an American who drank, pocketed things which weren't *exactly* his, and brought women back to the guest house. so no for now. alas... but he then served me a tasty meal & let me take a shower & a nap in el guest house, at least. tak tak! we then discovered that my bags were no longer in the cubby hole between the monastery & the terrace where i had stowed them. ouch - well, at least i wouldn't have to lug them down to the harbour again like i had dreaded... my host vespaed me down the mountain after yet another marvelous sunset to the police station, where - voila! someone had brought my things! and everything was there! moral of the story: be careful what you dread and wish and pray for! my host Akis then suggested i try Mt. Athos or the Holy Mountain in Northern Greece, so off i go!
9.05.03 day 30: > E of Thessaloniki GREECE
and so far i've reached Piraeus, the port city near Athens...
tried hitchhiking North to not much avail. hopped on a bus instead to Thessaloniki. then tried hitching East, again to no avail, and ended up camping out for the night on Snail hill - the one patch of green space i could find amidst Thessaloniki's urban & quasi-urban sprawl. awoke to find myself surrounded by hundreds of tiny, tiny snails - incredible!
10.05.03 day 31: > S of Ouranoupoli GREECE
arrive at the port city to travel to Mt. Athos, but too late for the daily ferry. hit the beach & camp out with a view of the seaside...
11.05.03 day 32: > Serres GREECE
i go to get on the ferry to the Holy Mountain but am told i need to go the office to pick up my visa-like permit to tread on holy ground. i hurry over there to find out that only 10 permits a day are issued to foreigners, all 10 are taken for today, and it costs 30 Euro for one anyway. ouch! bye bye Holy mountain! off to Rila monastery with me...
12.05.03 day 33: > E of Rila BULGARIA
once again, i arrive in Rila village too late for the bus through the mountains to the monastery. start hiking that way through visually stunning valleys & waterfalls...
13.05.03 day 34: > Rila Monastery BULGARIA
what seems to be the first bus of the morning passes me by without stopping. argh. as i stand there feeling stuck, i catch sight of an escaping horse coming up the path. its two front hooves are bound together with rope, and it is alternating hopping on those & walking on its hind legs to who knows where. go horse! to freedom! hitch & bus it to the intricately decorated monastery (thanks to cousin Jeff for first telling me about it) & ask if i can stay for a while & pray. the kind monk (with his limited English) explains that they have rooms to stay in for $, but that's all unfortunately - no place for me to lay my head. thanks anyway, i say, and walk off, only to be called back & offered a free room for one night at least. ja tak! pray for a while in the much more spacious church than that on Patmos...
14.05.03 day 35: > Sofia BULGARIA
meet a very friendly Englishman leaving the monastery & we head to the capital of Sofia - i've decided that it's time for me to end this trip. phase one is complete, phase two as well, i'm done. try all of the travel agencies for an inexpensive solution - no go. i check the internet & voila! snowflake (SAS' new discount airline) flies to København from Pristina, Kosovo super-cheap! and looking at my map, i see Pristina isn't very many hours to the East. yes!!! i get completely soaked in a life-affirming lightning & rainstorm... where i had hoped to stay for the night doesn't pan out, my funds are almost gone, and the only hotels which take credit cards are the ones with sky-high prices. i'm saved by a new Lebanese acquaintance who takes me under his wing & puts me up in a cheap student hostel type place. just before calling it a night, we notice that my bus ticket to Skopje, Macedonia the next day has been washed blank by the rain. ahhh!!!!!!!
15.05.03 day 36: SW of Pristina KOSOVO
awake to see that the writing on my ticket has subtly reappeared as it dried. phew... i leave town on the same day that Colin Powell arrives to meet with Bulgarian officials & fulfill whatever his sordid agenda is - very ironic. on the bus to Macedonia we listen to a very entertaining Elvis tape until it starts getting eaten - nothing like warped Elvis. change buses in Skopje & cross the border into the UN interim control of Kosovo - what a place. UN & KFOR & every acronym you can think of vehicles everywhere, bombed out buildings still visible here & there. ex-Yugoslavia - oh boy... my worn sandals let me down as i get off the bus & i land on my ass in Pristina. head to the airport, which has of course closed for the day. a British Airways bloke tells me to pick up my ticket from Austrian Airlines tomorrow. check with a Russian soldier stationed nearby that i won't be blown up by a landmine camping out in the surrounding fields, and sleep.
16.05.03 day 37: > København DANMARK!
pass the sign at the checkpoint to the airport which reads 'UNLOAD YOUR WEAPONS HERE'. head to Austrian Airlines to find that they're not the ones who have my ticket, nor does anybody else in the small airport know where i pick it up. panic! stuck in Kosovo - no thanks. i hike over to the nearest internet cafe & contact snowflake - luckily a very helpful Pia explains that it's an error on the website. you can only pick up tickets at the Scandinavian airports. but she kindly contacts the airport & takes care of it for me. what a relief... take off, a smooth flight, and it's back to the roof of Europe, where alt er rent, alt er paent...
(picture on left from unknown source - thank you Australian Broadcast Corporation, picture on right of me in Bulgaria - thank you P. Penev)