China

Well it has been a while since I wrote last, but that doesnt mean that stuff hasn't been happening.  On the contrary.  Stuff has been happening.  Although right now I am back in NZ, for this blog i'm going back to China, with an account of the most intense mission I think I had the whole of last year - dominating the Great Wall.  The following is a word for word extract from my diary, spelling mistakes and all, written just a couple of days after surviving the journey.  It is long, but read it, things do get a little crazy. I enjoyed reliving it again, and trust you will enjoy reading it.

The Great Wall

Met up with 6 couchsurfers early in the morning.  A couple living in Beijing, a couple passing through.  Our leader for the day, a resident couchsurfer who had been to the wall several times.  I had on me my 7D, a backpack, food and water for the day.  We bussed out there and were at the base of the climb at midday.  Freezing morning, but the sun was out and we had a fantastic blue sky day for it.  The wall was right above us and some very steep gulleys to get there.  Our path was pretty much straight up a ridge, climbing over anything in our way.  Could walk in trousers and a jumper, but when out of the sun and stopped it was relatively fresh to say the least.  A lot of scrambling.  While walking up if you turned around you could see countless ridges stretching to the horizon. 

Our route to the top - straight up

Some stretches quite steep and hard to see how close we were getting, before suddenly, bam, there is the wall.  Climbed a crumbling bit and all of a sudden you are on top of it all.  We were at an unrestored section of the wall, parts of which were crumbling, parts of which are very dangerous, but phenomonally beautiful to watch it stretch as far as you could see in both directions.  To the east we could see the tourist parts, cable cars taking people up.  But our section, we only saw four groups walking the whole day.  We had a small amount of food, I had bought a coconut loaf of bread.  Yum.  Checked out the first fort we saw.  Stunning views (the pic below was taken from it looking out to the tourist section) but very very cold inside, with the breeze shooting through and cutting you.

Where first climbed onto the wall. The easy bit.

We decided to do a loop that would take us west, over the dodgy crumbling section, from which we could take another ridge down to our starting point.  The wall is super crumbly here and we were making our way down from the highest point, so had to be very careful with our steps.  Some sections were 85 degrees straight down.  Got about 20min into the decent and to a very hairy part with very few footholds.  Chris (an investment banker from NY, who could speak but not read Chinese) was first down.  We had been talking about spending the night on the wall earlier but still undecided.  Rest of the group found the decent too dangerous so turned back.  From then on it was just Chris and I.  There was a group infront of us and I had to wait until they were all down, as every time I stepped, more hill would crumble down.  Such steep sections to build the wall on and so many heavy rocks to make the wall.  Hard to comprehend how it was built.  Sides 3-5m above the surrounding ridge and 3-5m wide, with towers every couple hundred meters.

Hey bob, whats say be build a little wall up on that ridge over yonder?

We decided to stick with the group ahead and would follow them to the closest point to the exit, so we could then make a choice whether to stay the night or not.  Thought the section we had just done was bad, but another hour of walking, and now 4pm, we found the toughest 30m section.  Straight down.  Pure rock climbing.  The wall was no longer there, only rubble 30m below.  The 3 dudes ahead went first, 2 guys and 1 girl.  The girl was finding it tough.  It was. There were tears. They finally got down.  Chris went down and then it was me.  I went down as far as I could, then handed chris my bag, before attempting the scariest part.  I had to turn around to face the wall.  Very tough in itself.  Couldn't see where foot holds were so had to ask those below.  Got to one section where I was pretty much marooned.  Impossible to go back up and very difficult to get down.  Foot holds were 1.5m to my right and 1m below.  Hand holds were 50cm to my right.  Loose rocks tumbling to the rubble 10m below.  I was on my own here.  No one to help.  Situation could easily panic in, but had to put that out of my head.  Physically I knew I could do it, but mentally I just had to trust myself to put total faith in the hand holds.  After a minute of composing myself, it was now or never.  Grabbed the hand holds tight.  My legs dangling, searching for the safety of the next foothold.  Lowered myself slowly and found the spot.  Sweet, next 10m a bit easier, but still had to be very careful, as every second step had a tendancy to dislodge a brick and send it crashing below.

The dude is standing on the last good foothold before the 10m time to crap your pants decent.

Looking back up at the decent - in particular the missing bit halfway up.

At the bottom we told the group ahead that we were staying the night.  Equiped with no food, they insisted on giving us their spare food.  We thanked them and said goodbye.  It was getting dark. Chris and I had a short conference.  We had to make the call whether we would stay or not.  It would be dark in under an hour.  There was not going to be a moon till halfway through the night.  We didn't have a torch.  The pass before the hut was way to dangerous to go back up in the cold and dark, as was the one 50m past the hut.  We made the call to stay, for the experience.  Neither of us knew the next time we would be back, so time to live the moment.  Ok.  The decision was made.  For better or worse, we would be on the wall overnight.  It was cold, very cold, but not too much wind.  Forecast for Beijing was -8degreesC overnight, we were exposed and on the top of a mountain.  our estimates were -10degC as cold as we should expect.  So now for the plan.

The wall snaking into the distance, the sun dropping, and our accomodation for the night bottom left.

First, to put on every bit of clothing I had.  I was wearing jeans, thin socks, sneakers, a thin t-shirt, thin jumper and a shell jacket.  I had 1 further layer of thermals, thick socks, long johns, long sleeved top and beanie.  But to put them on I pretty much had to get naked first.  Brrrr.  Haha.  Now clothed and with our gear (me basically my camera and a 500ml bottle of water, Chris his food, a few lollies, savoury snacks and his camera) safely in place, it was time to collect wood to light a fire while there was still light.  A quick scout of the are showed me just how isolated we were.  The only wood was growing between the cobbles on the wall, or places where the bricks had eroded.  The sides of the wall here were 3-4m straight down, so no way to get wood from outside our 'patch'.  We were stuck on a 100m stretch of wall with very few decent sized trees.  No leaves on the trees as it was winter, but lots of dry leaves on the ground to start a fire with.  We pretty much took to every shrub on our section of the wall, and had a modest amount of wood to show for it.  Questionable if it would last the night through, but the fire's warmth should be a good boost and will keep us busy most of the night.  Collected some leaves etc from the roof of the fort, but had to be careful as there were holes in the roof where the bricks had literally caved in. 

This is wood that would have been great for the fire, if only it wasn't growing just out of our reach down below the wall itself.

We put together first attempt at fire, little bit of tissue paper we had found, and some smaller stuff on top to catch alight.  The base caught and burned very well, but stuff on top no good.  2nd attempt, my try.  Layed what I thought to be a pretty good base, but same problem.  The wood on top would not catch.  Smoked, but no flames.  Third attempt Chris' try.  Big amount of leaves, hot flames, but still same problem, and fire didn't catch.  Decided next try would be our money maker.  We switched locataions so that there was a bit more through draft to get enough oxygen in.  Set a massive amount of leaves, well ventilated with sticks to give air and plenty of wood lined up to catch on.

Mean.

It was dark now, so I was using my lighter to illuminate the area while we set the fire.  Great.  Looks good.  Time to get warm.  Went to light it, and there was no 'click', tried a couple of times before taking the metal ring off the lighter to look closer.  God damn it! The fucking 1 yuen lighter (20c) had melted itself and the ignition while illuminating the area.  Shit my balls.  There goes the fire plan.  Atleast the wood may be of assistance to the next person who needed fire, as it should have dried by then.  But the realisation had hit that we had to get through the night without a fire.  It was close to 7pm, the sun went down around 5pm and wouldn't be up until 7am the next morning.  We had 14 hours of sub zero temperatures to battle against.  No sleeping bags, no tents, no blankets, no fire, no real food, just two guys in a 1000 year old fort on the great wall.

Really mean, and our home for the night.

An action plan was thought out.  We had our 'living quarters' which where were we would 'hang out'  A loose hourly schedule was devised as we realised sleep was not an option.  Each hour would consist of 15min of exercise (push ups, sit ups, boxing and running on the spot), 15 minutes of 'hanging out', 15 minutes more of exercise, and 15 minutes of activities - taking photos, discussing the universe, eating our little supplies etc.  The plan evolved as the night went on, but at least we had things to do to keep our minds off the cold.  Areas in the fort were given names as their uses became aparent.  We had our hanging out room where we sat, huddled, talked and listened to music (at least my ipod was fully charged).  We had our fire place, that never saw a fire, a wood storage area, the wind alley (to be avoided - where the wind constantly blew through), the gym - where we would work out, and the terrace which had good shelter and a great outlook over the wall, stars and the distant town, far out of reach in the vally below.

Chris running on the spot to keep warm on the 'terrace'

Keeping active was the only way to get through the night.  I hadn't done a single push up in the last 6 months, but would have done several hundred of them over the night, would have run on the spot for several hours too.  Our huddle positions left our toes, shoulder blades and knees exposed.  Warming up the torso was ok with pushups, but toes very hard to keep warm.  I devised an insulator (a plastic bag filled with leaves) that I would tie up, put over my feet and place a rock on top of it.  Quite effective and allowed me to sit for 20min at a time, rather than tapping out after 10min with frostbitten toes.  When exercising it would normally take the first 15min to get feeling back into the toes and generate some heat in the body.  The next 5-10min were to generate extra heat so that the toes would have an extra 5min grace before they started to freeze again.  A few hours into the night, while 'hanging out' we could feel the wind gusts wafting around the corner into our living quarters.  We needed some protection.  Thankfully there were a number of bricks for the purpose.  We felt slightly bad at moving 1000 year old bricks, but we needed the shelter.  A wall was erected, 80cm high, to block the wind, and whether it worked or not, it was a good psychological victory.

Flash with 30 sec exposure, and moon with which to write letters with.  Pity no one could get our message.

The conversation through the night was good, and couldn't have had a better person to survive the night with.  We talked ex girlfriends, girls, jobs, travel, ambitions, philosophy, music, astronomy, photography, but my favourite conversations were the 'what do you want to do next' ones.  If we were hanging out the conversation would normally be "you want to do some exercise soon?"  "yeah man, sounds good".  When exercising it might be, "hey man, i'm going to the terrace soon, want to join?" and when on the terrace it would be, "hey, why don't we go to the gym for a bit, then hang out".  About 5 hours into the night Chris realised that he had a torch on him.  Classic.  But it was cool as we could use it for light paintings in our photos. 

Light Painting our Fort

He had an original 5D, a nice camera.  We got some good snaps, but too cold to stay out for too long, and very hard to get focus.  I had only had my new camera for a few days, so a good test for it.  Had to keep the battery down my pants when not using it, as the cold sapps the juice pretty quick.  The stars at the beginning of the night were unreal.  Then came the moon, and then the clouds.  It kept getting colder and colder the whole night.

The Stars

The last 3 hours before dawn were crazy cold, and ended up spooning each other for warmth.  Tiredness had sunk in but it was almost impossible to sleep.  But I found when i closed my eyes I could dream while being awake, in that awesome pre-dream stage.  This was after about 10 hours in and I think Chris was starting to question whether I was going delarious or not.  I would shut my eyes and my subconsious brain would take over, but I was able to describe vividly what I was seeing.  "I am watching tanks on top of a cliff battling it out with dinosaurs, before a plane driven by a penguin swoops down and picks me up to take me to a milkshake bar".  it was literally like having a music vide/cartoon/cgi/montage playing in my head accessable at any time by shutting my eyes, and it was awesome.  i was starting to wonder if I was going delarious too.  Time passed fast, time passed slow.  I didn't eat much, my water bottle had frozen. 

Going crazy?  Nah, totally sane, you can see it in my eyes.

Sunrise was lacklusture and to be honest I didn't care about taking too many pictures.  Took a quick video of our surroundings, and listening to it now my voice is so slow, and I sound like I am out of breath.  But the morning light gave us the ability to navigate our way back down, a 3 hour walk followed by jumping onto the first local Chinese bus we felt like we had just found civilisation.  What a night.  What memories.

India

India

Can anything really prepare you for India?  Well nothing I have seen yet anyway.  You redefine your definition of crazy.  Elephants, camels, goats, cows, pigs and dogs roaming the streets isn't crazy.  Kids running barefoot over piles of plastic, glass, metal and raw sewage to play with their friends isn't crazy.  Dead bodies being burned on bonfires in public isn't crazy.  10,000 Indians bathing and drinking the same river that the sewage, rubbish, dead bodies and cattle float in isn't crazy either.  It is all just India.

The kids' playground.

No one here things these things strange, crazy.  Their definition of crazy would likely be sitting in an office pushing paper for 8 hours a day, the practice of swallowing pills when you are sad, sick, sore or otherwise, or even simply not knowing what is in, or where the food that you eat has come from.

Indian Oil - Delivery Service.

That being said, I have not turned the corner, jumped from the western bandwagon, or become a god damned hippie.  But its just that you learn to appreciate certain things a little better after spending time in India, while at the same time wondering why it is that we do some of the things that we do.  But enough talking, its time for a few stories from the sub continent.

Good a place as any for a sleep

Mumbai Madness

12 hours after standing on the streets of London I find myself standing on the streets of Mumbai.  It is 25 degrees warmer, a feed now costs me 50pence and I am about to find out what the term Mumbai Madness means.  I jump into a cab.  Driving the streets of Mumbai you don't just get to see the city.  You will invariably also smell, taste and hear it too.  Some countries are quite lax on their road rules, India simply doesn't have any.  I could reach out the open cab window and touch the car next to me, and in that gap a motorcyclist would shoot through, sitting on his horn, driving the wrong way.

It is common to see a family of 5 on a Hero Honda 125cc bike, or anywhere up to 12 people packed into, or hanging off an auto rickshaw.  And it was fittingly on the back of a motorcycle, with my new couchsurfing mate Vinit, that I was to experience life in Mumbai over the next couple of days.  Vinit is a true Mumbai local who can drive on the wrong side of the road with the best of them.  He took me to places so far removed from anything I had seen in the past 9 months that it is actually quite hard to describe them in their full detail.  We saw some of the best and the worst of Mumbai, ate on the streets, got to know the locals, talked cricket and learned the Indian head waggle.

 Street food - delicious sweet milk, 5rupees, 15 nz cents

But one story from Mumbai really sums up much of India for me.  The first night I found myself in one of the slum areas after dark.  To my mind the place looked as sketchy as anything I had seen this year.  Shacks illegally strung together on either side of the road, fires burning in the unsealed streets, animals sifting through piles of rubbish and plenty of noise.  Not totally comfortable in the midst of things, I took some photos from a distance.  A guy on the other side of the road spotted me doing so and shouted at me.  The group he was standing with became interested too, and approached me.  I was thinking just play it cool.  They all group around me.  One of them points to my camera.  Know knowing what to do, I show them the pictures I had just taken.  They start to laugh when they see themselves on camera.  They invite me over their side of the road and ask me to take some more.  While we walk, one asks what country I am from.  NZ I answer.  North or South Island another one says.  Another guy ducks round behind his produce stall, grabs a bag, fills it with tomatos, carrots, cucumbers and gives them to me as a gift.  We talk, laugh, I have a bunch of new mates, and feel like I am getting to know India a bit betters

 Outskirts of Mumbai

That story carries on basically for the next three weeks.  I quickly drop most of my knee jerk defences, as you realise that your average Indian man on the streets (excluding auto rickshaw drivers, or anyone looking to make a buck from you) could not be more genuine or kind, although their insatiable curiosity can overwhelm you sometimes.  It is almost a necessary response to the utter chaos of life in India that internally you must become a very calm person to survive there.

Camel Riding

For me, the thought of riding a camel through a desert far from civilisation, and sleeping in the sand dunes under the stars, had a certain amount of romanticism attached to it.  As our camels galloped into view just out of Jaislamer city, I was still blissfully unaware of the non existent levels of comfort found while riding a camel.  I was introduced to my beast, one Mr. Magoo, a 10 year desert veteran who was halfway through his 20 year service.  

 Waiting for the camels.

A few minutes after our introduction, and without so much as a 'this is how you drive a camel' lesson, we were off.  For those that have never ridden a camel, riding a camel is like having ropes tied to your ankles, which are being pulled violently outwards every two seconds by a bunch of strong men, while being simultaneously punched up the arse.  Any romantic notions quickly dissipated.

We had decided to take the camels to an area of the desert not on the tourist trails.  True to the description, or companions over the next day and a half were solitary farmers heading trips of goats through the vast emptiness, a few sporadic villages, and desert kids. The desert kids seemed to appear from no where, were quite fascinated simply squatting 10 paces away from us and observing us eating lunch for an hour.  Unlike the kids in the cities, they were incredibly shy, but we did manage to find some common ground.  They enjoyed eating bananas, and jumping for the camera.

Desert Kids.  I love this photo.

During the night on the dunes, our Indian guides were quite animated.  We found out the reason in the morning.  We were one camel down, and I guess short straws were drawn in the night to determine who would chase down the rouge camel on the loose.  I have no Idea how you find a black camel, in the night, in the desert, with no moon, but our man had done it, and we were re-united with the wandering camel and tired guide 15km down the road the next day.  We were secretly cheering on the camel though, as it would be a pretty tough life as a beast of burden in the Indian desert.

Both the camels and our guides drank from the oasis.

Trains.

There are far too many stories to share really, so I hope the following pictures do justice to some of them that I have not been able to tell here.  But I will leave you with one story which I find quite funny, as I still have no idea what actually happened.  

I love travelling rough.  Whether by bus, bike, boat or back of a truck, I find the most memorable travel experiences corrolate inversely to the level of luxury you experience during the journey.  In India the trains were right up y alley.  The longer the ride, the more chaos, the better.  To get to the bathroom on the trains (if you can call a hole in the train floor a bathroom), you literally have to step your way over Idians sleeping in the isles, underneath seats, or anywhere they can squeeze into.  

Waiting.  One of my favourites.

On my first train ride, I was standing in the space between the carriages.  To the left and the right are big metal doors on each side.  It was an hour into the journey, and the train wasn't totally packed.  I still didn't really know how things on the train worked either.  The train came to a stop just before getting into the station.  All of a sudden the doors burst open, and several men wearing hankerchiefs over their faces stormed onto the train.  I almost shat myself.  Being the only westerner on the carriage I thought I was going to be an easy target.  I wasn't going to let myself be an easy target though, so I started running.  I stormed through the carriage to the other side without looking back.  I found the toilet, jumped inside, locked the door and started calculating.  How many indians were there, how much time will I have till they find me here, I started stuffing my passport, money, memory cards down my underwear, all of the while there were shouts and yelling outside the toilet door.  I was contemplating any further escape routes but there were none.  

 The Trains.

After what seemed an age, their was quiet on the train.  Two circumstances were playing in my head, either the bandits had emptied the train, or the passengers had rallied together and ejected them.  I peeked out the hole in the door, it looked calm, I gingerly stepped out of the toilet, shaking.  The bandits weren't there any more.  I tried to ask some people what had happened, with little success.  It happens they told me.  As I said at the beginning, I still don't know what happened.  They could have been just out to secure seats without tickets, they could have been opportunists looking to snatch some gear and run.  But all I knew was that I had just had the best train experience I have had so far.  The next 31 hours on the train seemed rather mundaine.  

The rest, heavily abbreviated, in pictures.

Markets in Jodhpur

On the daily walk through the city, Mathura.

The kids are awesome, apart from the ones that are not, this not being one of those that are not though.

They love packing as many people as they can into anything.

Varanassi before dawn.

 Varanassi after dawn.

India, it really has to be seen to be believed.  And even looking back at some of the photos, I still don't believe some of what happened.  

Old Mates, New Mates. Bonn, Berlin and Istanbul

October

October was always goıng to be a good month.  Kıckıng off wıth a week ın Bonn, Germany, stayıng wıth old mates Keıth and Patty, followed by a stınt ın Berlın, whıle catchıng up wıth Helen, Aıdan and Guddıe, then a couple of weeks checkıng out what Turkey has to offer.  A pretty solıd month was on the cards.  The realıty - and I don't know how thıs keeps happenıng - was approxımately 4 tımes as good as I could have ımagıned.  Possıbly there was a shıft ın the space tıme contınuıum, maybe the planets were alıgned.  But what I lıke to thınk ıs that ıf you are ın the market for good tımes, are free and have nothıng to worry about, good tımes wıll fınd you.

Possıbly too many good tımes.

Bonn (well that was what I thought)

5 nıghts ın Bonn, 3 mates, 5 crates of beer was keıths call on arrıvıng at hıs house.  A crate of beer ın Germany ıs a thıng to behold.  20 half lıtre fresh German beers sıttıng there pleadıng to be drunk ın each crate, at the crımınally low prıce of 10 euros per crate (cheaper than double brown - and almost as delıcıous). 2 nıghts ın and we were laggıng slıghtly behınd the askıng rate (keıth and patty had the excuse that they had to work, but would make up the defıcıt ın the weekend).  I was doıng my best to help the cause by drınkıng durıng the day whıle they were at work.  A true team player.  As the weekend approached ıt was stıll touch and go as to whether ıt would be done. 

Patty at work.

Frıday afternoon my phone rıngs.  It ıs Owaın Pennıngton.

Where are you?

Bonn.

Germany rıght?

Yup.

Ill be there tomorrow.

Ok.

Suddenly 3 mates becomes 4.

Keıth, Owaın, Patty. Bonn. Justıce.

Saturday nıght the lıvıng room was converted to a beer pong room.  Beers started dıssappearıng faster than you could say where dıd that last crate go.  Pızzas were made, consumed, lamps were broken (sorry keıths landlord!), spırıts were hıgh, Reggıe Mıller was lookıng good.  Town was hıt, and town was domınated.

I don't have all my Bonn photos on me rıght now, so here is one I prepared earlier.

Every physıcs student knows that every actıon has an equal and opposıte reactıon.  Accordıngly, the next mornıng was, to say the least, rather subdued.  Keıth cooked up a 5 star breakfast of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, ımıtatıon trı browns, baked beans and toast.  It took us 5 hours to fınısh ıt.  The day was sunny though, so to get over our woes a few haırs of the dog were consumed ın the local park whıle playıng a made up cross over game of handball/football/slıps catchıng/duck shootıng.

Monday 

Keıth and Patty were back at work on Monday.  Owaın and I needed a plan.  Wıth a bıt of artıstıc lıcence taken, thıngs kında went a bıt lıke thıs: 

What should we do today? 

Go to Amsterdam?

Done.

We rented a car, drove for 4 hours and got ınto Amsterdam just after mıdday.  Owaın had taken keıths guıtar, we went to Vondelpark and started wrıtıng songs.  I texted Jos, another frıend who lıves ın Amsterdam.  Thıs ıs actually how thıngs went down:

Yo Jos, Mark here, just arrıved ın Amsterdam - you should come and meet us ın Vondelpark.  Brıng your banjo.

Sweet, sounds good!  See you ın an hour!

I love my frıends.

Owaın and Jos.  Banjo and Guıtar.  Vondelpark. Monday.

A full day was spent.  Much fun was had, endıng wıth a lousıana style blues band playıng us off at 1am.  From there ıt was only a short 4 hour drıve back to Bonn.  Thıs left me just enough tıme to pack my bag, hard boıl a couple of eggs, and catch the 6am traın to Berlın.

Thıs ıs not the traın to Berlın, but I lıke the photo better than the one of the traın to Berlın.

Berlın

Stıll half dazed I stumbled ınto Nıcks place, a couchsurfer from Berlın who had saıd yes to hostıng me on the condıtıon that I arrıved wıth beer.  Sounded lıke a perfect ınvıte, and wıth a backpack on my back, camera bag ın one hand, rucksack over my shoulder, and a 6 pack of beer ın my other hand we met.  Nıck works as a tatoo artıst from a room ın hıs massıve flat.  The rest of the massıve flat was fılled wıth everythıng under the sun (ıncludıng a flyıng clock) and 6 other couchsurfers.

Nıcks Flat - note the flyıng clock on the roof

Two days at Nicks place = several new mates, from London, Sweden, France, Copenhagen and Berlin.  From there it was a timely visit from some old mates, Helen, Aidan and Guddie for a weekend of adventuring around Berlin.

 Berlin architecture; not so inspiring.

One of the more interesting sites we came across was an abandoned American spy base, sitting ontop a mountain of rubble, literally.  One of Nick's couchsurfers told me about it, and it sounded too good not to visit.  After the second world war, Berlin had a fair amount of rubble to get rid of.  Approximately 400,000 houses worth of that rubble was used to bury a former Nazi training camp.  Over the years vegitation has overcome the rubble, and now it looks like any other normal hill (albeit a hill with bits of rusted iron and bricks sticking out of it in places).  The hill is known as Teufelberg (Devil's Mountain) and at 80m high, is the highest point in the whole of Berlin.  The spy base was used by the Americans to spy on the East during the cold war, and looks like a series of golf balls stacked on top of each other.  It is surrounded by security fences, but those fences have several holes in them, perfect to slip through and do a bit of sight seeing.

Helen in one of the golf balls, overlooking Berlin.

After the weekend I had a day to spare before meeting up with the next couchsurfers.  I met an American kid in the hostel I had checked into that day, and decided to head out with him for the night to an underground punk gig at a Berlin squat.  We had a few pre game beers, and headed for the metro.  We had to change metro lines 10min into the journey, and call me Shirley if we didn't run into Gareth White while we were swapping trains.  Gareth is an old friend from school days.  Neither of us had any idea that the other was in town.  I asked him where he was staying, and call me Francis if he wasn't staying in exactly the same room that I was in the night before.  Crazy.  Well Gareth decided to come out with us to the gig, and after that we met up with David Gordon and the rest of the crew Gareth was in town with.

The Gig.

The Toilets at the Gig.

The rest of my time in Berlin was spent with another awesome group of Couchsurfers, Karo, Jonas and Bori.  I left their place to go for a walk through Gorlitzer Park the first day I was there.  The park is awesome, and I met quite a few interesting locals.  The first was a guy in full camo gear (including mask), long dreadlocks flowing out the back of his mask, and a bat swinging by his side.  By the way he was riding a bike too.  I took a photo.  He saw me, changed direction on his bike, and while passing me, told me in no uncertain terms "f*** your camera".  The next group of hospitable locals gave me a vocal chorus from 50m away.  It took me 100m of walking to get fully past them, but I could still hear their shouts in the distance.  As they were shouting in German, I didn't really understand.  They could have been saying "hey mate, hope your photos are coming out good, want one with all of us in it?", but then again I doubt it.  I also found a 9mm bullet casing in the kids playground there. 

 Outside the Park.

Berlin was good.  Very good.  Rough in places, but that is what makes it interesting.  There are the must sees, like the holocaust memorial, something you really have to experience, a very powerful memorial and extremely well done.  But then there are the hidden gems like the spy base, or the abandoned roller coaster park in the suburb of Treptower.  Berlin rewards the curious.  Many of the highlights came from places and events not to be found in any lonely planet.  Find some locals, get their knowledge and have a blast.

 The abandoned soviet era theme park.

Ditto.

The Holocaust Memorial.

Istanbul

From Berlin to Istanbul, and some quality airport time.  The Berlin flight left at 3am in the morning.  You would think that Sun Express (the airline) would at least have the decency to turn the lights out on the plane so that you could sleep for the 2.5 hour journey.  You would think that.  The reality?  Between the pilot, the first mate and the cabin crew, there was no more than 5 min of dead air at any one time over the intercom, they served you a meal at 4am (wtf?), and the lights were on extra bright the whole journey.  Not a chance to get any sleep.  Hitting the Istanbul airport at 7am I had not slept.  I found a nice bench seat though, so decided to have a power nap.  2pm I woke up nice and ready, but not expecting, the 3 hour, 30km journey into Istanbul.  Anyone who has been to Istanbul will understand.  15million people in a city with worse public transport than Auckland does not make for a quick ride.

When in Istanbul you operate on Istanbul time.  This lady will take 1 year to hand weave this carpet, barely 6 foot long.

Thankfully, everything else about Istanbul absolutely kicks ass.  With kebabs costing from $2NZ, and a ferry ticket from Europe to Asia costing $1.50 you know you are going to have fun.  Istanbul strategically straddles both Europe and Asia (if you need a further geography lesson ask Chia), and the two sides of the city are linked by two bridges.  Once a year, the Istanbul Marathon is run, starting on the Asian side, crossing the bridge and finishing in Europe.  I wasn't stupid enough to sign up for the marathon, but I did enter the 8km fun run, on the insistence of Zsuzsanna (who incidentally got all four of us staying at Ali's place (my Istanbul couchsurfing legend) to also sign up).  Ali was the only one to actually run though, fighting his way through the fiercely athletic crowd, the rest of us could do no more than walk.  Before you laugh, take a look at the crowd.  There were approximately 100,000 people walking (that is a figure I just made up), but to run, you basically had to judo kick and karate chop your way through this bunch.

Part of the 100,000 strong crowd.

But my favourite photo is this one below.  To me it embodies the spirit of Turkey.  All these guys know they are not athletes, but turn up to have a pretty good party, and enjoy the day walking between continents. 

Old man & friend psyching up for the big race.

8km fun run Istanbul style, complete with backgammon board and rug.

The one thing that I had heard from several people was while in Turkey, you should go on a hot air balloon ride.  Most travel suggestions I politely nod to, then blatantly ignore, but this was one said with such conviction that instantly the idea was cemented in my head.  I will track down a hot air balloon.  Thankfully it is not that hard, as hundreds every day launch out of Capaddocia (12 hours inland from Istanbul).  Thank you Leroy, Helen and Aidan for your recommendation.  It was one of the best things I have done this year, and sensationally photogenic.

Early morning sunrise.

This girl claimed she could actually see the other balloon waving at her.

Yup.

Before I left to go ballooning, Ali had mentioned to me that he was going to visit his family in Gallopoli the following weekend, and asked if I would like to join.  I really couldn't believe my luck.  Yes was the only sane answer to that.  To visit a place of such significance which has until then lived solely in your imagination, is like living a dream.  For starters, the Gallopoli peninsula is of stunning beauty, and the evening we visited, there was not another living soul around.  The sun was just setting, a gentle sea breeze was wafting in and there was silence, complete silence.

Anzac Cove - where the troops landed.

It was emotional and inspiring.  Another must see that just takes your breath away.  You come away with a lot of respect not only for the ANZAC troops, but the courage and camaraderie shown by the Turks in defending their own land.  There is no animosity between the two, and by the end of the battle, both sides had come to deeply respect each other, a feeling still evident when visiting Gallopoli today. 

So that was October more or less.  Right now, I am in Mumbai, India.  I have a feeling November is going to be pretty epic too.

Istanbul

The Blue Mosque

Talk soon,

Mark