Friday, July 20, 2007

How Often To Clean A Katana Sword

Overview of India: from July 10 to 22

The night was heavy and clammy, my eyes are glued to the fan hangs from the ceiling. My mind is focused on the circumference drawn by the flippers trying in vain to forget the pain of my belly and watching the alerts for the next released of s waters. When my stomach let me finally asleep, the dogs began to howl to death. My nights are long and sultry.
By dint of sweat my body gives off a rancid odor that showers repeatedly fail to clear. That is 7 days that I'm sick, more than 7 pounds have disappeared . My skin became flaccid mole and I finally resembles those travelers without respite on the road for years in rickety old body.
Yet my arrival in India had gone well, full of enthusiasm to enter a new country so different from Muslim countries that had crossed for months. I was lucky enough to get by Ameritsar including the Golden Temple is a wonderful place, a vast surrounding a huge white palace Basin which is dominated by a harmonious temple covered with gold. The place is quiet and sublime, the songs of religious soft add to its serenity. Women are dressed in saris of every color, men, most Sikhs wear turbans stained. Some swim in the large pool. It is housed and fed for free.

few days before leaving Pakistan, I realized that my Indian visa expired on July 22. So I planned to do 12 days of quick visit and possibly go to Kathmandu redo my visa or take direction from another country.

Ameritsar I left to join Delhi where I met Robert, The rug merchant Croatian and his nephew in January We ended the second day in Jaipur. My intestines had already given up after 5 months of faithful service.
Jaipur is a beautiful city, the buildings of downtown are ocher red light at the end of the day is entirely pink. The architecture is sought with capitals under the roofs, terraces and Indian motifs. Despite my fatigue, we went with Jan to visit palaces and temples including the temple of the monkeys outside the city remains the most magical place. The temple rises in terraces on the side of a hill, the pools of dark green water, drip into each other and serve pools youth, women and monkeys. Students are monks draped in yellow and the front painted with colored powder yellow, orange and white. They invite you to stay a few days in this peaceful and serene. It was tempting, but my gut and my visa refused.



I went back to Delhi to retrieve my camera down from Peshawar, leaving Robert and Jan go to Agra to see Taj Mahal. Robert for his part has caught some kind of pneumonia and will soon not return to Croatia.

I arrived at midnight at the station in Delhi, rickshow I crossed the old city. Men of all ages, children also sleep on the floor. The streets are littered with those sleepers trying to recover some strength to tackle the next day to find food of this new day. The middle class grows and enjoys the fruits of the Indian growth but remain poor, it seems, desperately poor. Arrived at the hotel, I found my fan and my diarrhea, I nevertheless managed to drag myself out of bed to find Anouk, one of the Swiss of Kyrgyzstan, I was glad to see her and hear her story on the fascinating polo tournament in Pakistan with its proud and rude riders, only tournament where no rule is stop the violence of the game
The night was terrible and I have had the courage to go see the Taj Mahal. This will be one more reason to return to India. I finally managed to reach the next Benares, I would not want to leave India without seeing this unique religious place.

Monsoon was there with its rain and clouds, but the charm of the place is evident even if light must be fairest to another season. The temples and palaces accumulate along the waterfront called "gather" with a multitude of colors and varied architecture. The pilgrims bathe to purify themselves in the sacred waters of the Ganges among the cows and a few meters from where the bodies are buried pure pregnant women or infants died. The fires burn all day long where the bodies of the dead "impure" from here is sacrificed. Children dive into the water which we send a single sip directly to the hospital.
The pilgrims are less numerous than in winter, but the show is already amazing, there are sadhus, dressed in loincloths orange skinny with long hair, forehead often Gold born of concentric circles of color, there are the many bald women piercing, there are others dressed in white and many more ... This is exciting.
The streets of Benares are narrow, only a cow could pass the time, the dung scattered on the ground, mangy dogs in sparse fur die away into the corners, odors are violent, then there are the destitute and the handicapped begging along the temples and children looking to sell postcards or color powders without much success. The misery in the dirt leaves a bitter taste in the show, my health has probably played on those impressions.
I finally change course and fly to Thailand towards the beach to recuperate and kilos.

My whole trip prepared me for the shock of India. But after seeing so many country and nothing really related I think not having enough space in my mind to try to understand the complexity of India. The heavy and extremely hot climate and my poor health did not give me the desire to return immediately. I keep this great country for another trip that will be dedicated if the mood takes me.

India leaves me pictures from the beautiful and hard like Ethiopia.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Bangbros Free Watch Full

Pakistan: Peshawar Lahore from July 4 to 10

Peshawar and Lahore have to be common border towns, noisy and crowded, and have been terribly hot and humid. But beyond all these similarities between them, the people, architecture and lifestyle.


Peshawar Pakistan that Afghanistan is more. The population speaks Pashto, many Afghan refugees have found shelter in 30 years. It the city of all trades. Markets are the most incredible, there is everything from computers and phones stolen from Kalachnikofs galore but also of opium and heroin. All these places are part of sightseeing in the city but since the events are the Red Mosque, the army banned the visits. The tension is evident in Peshawar, the Pakistani advise avoiding the men in green turbans, the police took to the streets and watching the tourists. In Peshawar, Islam is much more rigid than in the north, there is almost no woman in the streets. Tourists are covered from head to foot to avoid the object of all eyes.
The discussions with the Pakistani can quickly divert to the religion. Their liver is simple and profound. Here, there is little room for the exchange on this subject as on that of women.
The streets and bazaars of Peshawar are extremely lively and colorful, the welcome is always so nice.

It was over 40 degrees even at night. We were sitting in the midst of a multitude of men in colorful turbans, smoke hashish pervaded the air. Join the movement of people in person. Men we served with rice and fresh mangoes, others sprayed the air with rose water. Two musicians were beating their drum rhythms with more and faster, more men turned themselves in to the rhythms of the music, eyes rolled back in full trance. The night of Sufi of Lahore!

Lahore, India is already the inhabitants are Punjabi, dark skin and black hair, like the Indians. Women are dressed in colorful saris. There is no rule at all the same atmosphere as Pashawar despite the presence of many officers. More polluted than bottled and Peshawar, more populated downtown is full of homeless night sleeping on the ground. Lahore but also has some architectural wonders like the Grand Mosque Badshahi Masjid, chief lumber elegance. The city disappears under colonniale overcrowding and gardens have lost their glory, but it retains a certain charm. The modern city developed in the image of cities without moderm western charm with its international shops and Westernized population.







is in these two cities I met travelers the most interesting and unusual as journalists or volunteers returning from Afganistan their adventures or the Belgian thirty years. He was in the flight from Kathmandu to Delhi was hijacked for nearly 10 days in 99, and every day one of the hijackers was pointing his gun on his forehead and said "you'll be the first." Since then, he travels by bicycle without ever stopping, catching all the diseases of the earth, strange life ...

I have happy memories of this beautiful country with magnificent mountains and the amazing hospitality of the Pakistani clichés submitted by our televisions.
I leave the political crisis in Pakistan with a deep concern for the future of this country. As in all countries with a high degree corruption and social inequality accompanied by a quasi-totalitarian regime, Islam became the refuge of popular protest.

Monday, July 2, 2007

The Difference Between The Minohd And Ultrahd

Pakistan: Gilgit Kalash valleys of 22 to 29 June

"They drank wine, had their dance paces Bacchic worship, their country like Greece, valleys and water fields identified by a screen of mountains comforting after Hindu Kush deserts. And those faces so familiar ... " chroniclers tell of the conquests of Alexander.
Indeed, deep in the mountains the Hindu Kush forests are oaks, sky and light reminiscent of the Mediterranean, the grape growing, wine and grappa like the cicadas sing ... The people have light skin and green eyes, I shared the surprise of these men.
But this is not the color of their skin that lies the most amazing but well in the traditions of the Kalash people. All of northern Pakistan, a part of Chinese Turkestan and Iran but also the north of India are inhabited by these peoples to unclear. They probably arrived with the Indo European invasion came from the plains of northern Europe from the 3rd millennium BC JC. They raided the shelves of Iran, through the Hindu Kush and reached the Punjab plains and the first Chinese Turkestan.
Given their languages and despite the persistent legend, they are not the descendants of Alexander's soldiers, but maybe those of Dionysus! The Kushan empire from these people nevertheless shows many Greek influences ...

After three days of roads from Gilgit in beautiful green valleys populated of Ismaliens always so hospitable and tolerant, after crossing the neck of Shandur or runs the most prestigious polo tournament between Pakistan the best teams Gilgit and Chitral, I came to Chitral, the capital of the region of the same name.

in this region, just three hours of Chitral Jeep on steep roads, only 6 hours walk from Afghanistan, the last people "infidel" is trying to save his astonishing identity against its neighbors Muslims. In the late 19th century, the Sultan of Kabul has launched against the Kafiristan, "land of infidels," the greatest offensive put an end to these beliefs on the face of the Afghan Hindu Kush.

There are now only three valleys about 30 km each and last Kalash live in 4000.

Entering these valleys, one discovers a fantasy world, where tales of extreme beauty, mistresses of the waters and lakes filled with gold, fall in love with shepherds in impossible love, oules bad spirits haunt the forests, where the gods communicate through shamans, punish misconduct by curses and protect the Kalash.
reigns in the three valleys genuine harmony. The houses are open to neighbors, men and women mingle and share their daily lives. These are dressed in black robes embroidered with yellow and orange, they wear many necklaces of glass beads yellow and orange, and long dresses made of shells. Their eyes are deep green, their nose is long and prominent cheekbones, they are sometimes very beautiful.

Children play cricket with bits of wood, swimming in pools or jumping from rooftop to rooftop. They eat ripe apricots and climbing in the trees above and they laugh as much as their parents. Women still are smiling, do not hesitate to approach and attempt to discuss with looks troubling.
Nature is generous, the trees are huge and full of fruit, green fields and plenty of water and pure. They do not seem to strive to work, work in their religion is the result punishment from God, so a chore. The sin of Adam and Awa, or that of another woman who at the time or snow was cheese and when it was enough to bend down to eat, washed her son with the gift of the gods, unhappy that they transformed into forming snow, and the man known work ...
They have no text, their religion and made oral histories and legends that Behar, sort of shamans or elders tell during religious festivals, sacrifices or winter evenings. Their memory is inexhaustible. If they have a god, Khodia, bigger than the others, creator of the universe and of Adam and Awa with the clean side of Adam, they also have a multitude of gods who intercede for them with Khodia. In every valley, there are sometimes special gods returned from Afghanistan after the killing and the conversion of Kafirs. In their mythology, like Jews, they migrated 500 years before finding the Tsyam they were subsequently expelled. They say they are descended from one of the 7 son of Adam and Awa, who murdered his brother to take his wife's father is Muslim.
Men and women drink wine Kalash, a kind of grappa, sometimes smoked hashish that grows like a weed. They drink mainly during ceremonies that are very festive and sometimes allow throw all the grudges.
This unusual world, which arouses curiosity and imagination and remind our children's stories, it does stand to proselytize Muslim and Western materialism brought by tourists and traders?

During these few days, I allowed myself to dream ...


Lens Hood Differences

Pakistan: Gilgit, Nanga Parbat from June 18 to 25

It was 2 o'clock in the morning when Chee Keong, Jean-Philippe, the driver of the jeep and I been awakened by men at the door tombourinant . The door opens on two men machine gun in hand, long Palestinian scarf and beard. Fatigue of three days of intense walking under a blazing sun we did not have enough time to worry, the two characters have settled to sleep in this big room where we had been received by the head of a village where no tourist stops.
We were at the foot of Nanga Parbat a few kilometers from Gilgit, a town at the crossroads of the major valleys of the north, the commercial center of the KKH, all goods will converge, carpets from Iran or Turmenistan, stones valuable to Afghanistan, Buddhist statues from Nepal or the Chinese junk.
women have disappeared from the streets, few who venture there are completely veiled. We are far from moderate Islam the Ismailis.


is a few miles south of Gilgit, knew the road to Nanga Parbat, there is a point where we can observe the three highest mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas, Karakoram and Hindu Kush. Mount Nanga Parbat, one beyond 8000m summit overlooking the KKH is the last summit of the Himalayas. It is a veritable wall of ice that emerges vertically over 4000m above the base camp, it ignites the sun and illuminates at night. The Hindu Kush is
border with Afghanistan and the Karakoram with china, higher the Pamir Mountains are also cast. It does not get more legendary and great mountains ...
I think I'll leave the mountains of Nepal in the monsoon season already for another trip ...