Just some shit I wrote...

Addis Ababa (semi-fictional, largely incoherent, and not to reflect poorly on its author for his observations!)

I left the bar, the girls, the prostitutes, the ammonia odour of the piss trough and puddles of piss you stand on your toes to avoid in that drunken balance only booze gives you; the wretch inducing squatter and the man whittling away the mountain of shit lodged within it; the rooms with their filthy beds stained with love bought with birr, and the remnants of past love in latex tossed onto the floor here, there, one on the mount of turds- forethought or afterthought? I admire the idea all the same. Whittle away that mountain! I put it all behind me, fuzzy warmth, blurred happiness tumbling within, and bounced down the stairs to the pavement out onto the streets of Piazza. Exhausted, well beyond drunk but clear and steady walking at a rapid clip face down, then up, then down, somewhere in between as I wander; the street, the holes, the dents and piles of rock; teenagers, strangely, playing soccer in the street with a ball of wound tape and paper; the people, mere piles of rags and pieces of tarp, sleeping on the streets, step over one, move past another, look for the landmarks to navigate by: the jewelers- keep straight-, the brothel- straight some more-, the Continental- turn-, Taitu, the garden bar, another brothel, right then home. Baro. A dump by another name. Cheap and social. A ring of the bell and a waiter will bring you food, beer, condoms strangely kept in the kitchen, stored in a massive box. Where am I staying? Such service! Even at this hour, banging on the gate belting out what I imagine to be words of some importance in broken Amharic, people are on the streets and alive in the Baro. A passing bell boy, silver tray, beer and condoms. How strange to see this, feel what I can still manage to feel and hear within the whirring buzz in my ears the muezzin begin his call to prayer. God how wretched it sounds here. Garbled, broken, husky, and just shit. How is this a praise to Allah? Perhaps it's Arabic but it lacks the mellifluous beauty I know from Istanbul, Marrakesh, Lombok. Fuck it must be early.

My room? A cave. Damp, faded paint, a window looking out onto the hallway and a painful fluorescent light screaming a gash of luminescence onto my bed the curtain but threadbare at best. But a bed and bedroom it is. Sleep.

There is no morning like the afternoon. My Norwegian friends made it back. We converse, we order cheap macchiatos, Ambo, the Ethiopian Perrier. They smoke cheap Nyela cigarettes that taste like the dust and dirt on the streets. What a night! What a day.

With my recovery underway it's back out onto the streets of Piazza. Where am I going? The Qat dealers near the street butcheries with their carcasses slung on the white boards of their stalls. Qat, the leaf you chew and chew and chew but not quite chew; the mouth swelling like a cracked out chipmunk as you stuff your cheeks with leaves and the feeling that this is but a cud you gnaw away at for hours. And in the end? Nothing. My benzos counteract the stimulant effect of the qat. My afternoon as a cow wasted but interesting. But onto the streets first. Out of the gate the guides emerge. 'My friend! Ca Va!' I'm not French but they think that I am. Ignore them, walk on. They don't exist. The street is as dented and pock marked in the day as it is in the night. But it's much louder now. More alive. Ancient soviet Ladas honking, lurching past, spewing blue-black fumes. Dodge them, dodge the beggars. Dodge the guides. Ignore it. This is easier than it sounds, less callous than it is. This is Addis. But it is just another city in another hole of a country. I'm used to this, sad or not. I walk up the sloping street inhaling fumes, dust, some faint odour of rotting garbage from a dumpster long past full and long since ignored. The sidewalk is here and there but mostly not there at all just crumbling bits of concrete and glass with men on the sides cheerily chewing qat, socialising, waiving to me, 'Salamno!' There are men sanding away at cheap wood making tables. They always greet me kindly 'Salamno! How are you, my friend?' And up I walk past buildings with their Italian, Fascist colonial influence fading into the grime on their walls with patches here and there. I pause and stare. They are something to behold all the same. Women hanging out the wash in the fouled air to dry. I nod, smile, and walk past.

I round the corner, return remembering I need phone credit. International texts are a bitch. I point at the green card in my wallet, '50 birr', because if they understand '50 birr' surely they cannot understand 'I need the green card' and so I point to the card. I do this all the time. I have two vendors I like to go to. One, a young man who sells massive bottles of water and nails and glue to the carpenters, another, an old man and woman who sell mobile cards, socks, and women's panties among the cigarettes but no water. The street gets louder now. I round another corner and the minibuses and fumes accumulate. The beggars, missing a limb here, blind over there, the last shred of sanity long gone from another, and the one burn victim I cannot help but give my pocket change to everyday as I pass. But otherwise I struggle to remember, to see that they are here. I walk past, dodging the minibuses, 'Merkato! Merkato! Arat Kilo!' God they cram 'em in. But they are cheap. The streets are not madness. They are chaos. But chaos in the sense that introverted geniuses in math and physics mean it: order out of what looks like madness. I cross the street weaving between the minibuses and random Hilux that, however new they may be, nevertheless churn out a blue-black smoke. There is an island and a roundabout here. A man takes a dump in the storm grate; casual, ambivalent about the traffic swirling around him and his business just like most of us during our morning shit. We simply sit and shit. He should have a newspaper to read.

More beggars, more guides, donkeys stacked with sacks filing past leaving behind grassy stains of shit that add colour to the dust of the street, people shining shoes offering to polish my canvas and soon to fall apart Vans, and the boys yelling 'YOU! YOU!' to whom, depending on my mood, I respond with a, 'ME! ME!' Who taught them this shit? 'You! You!' And I'm the asshole for ignoring them. But the street still slopes and I labour up it. Addis is city high in the mountains. I wander past Geneve with its cheap pasta, amazing coffee and sweets, the espresso and pasta being legacies of the Italians who attempted to colonise the one country never to be colonised in Africa. God bless them! But they failed. Asses beaten by a ragtag army. But they left their imprint all over Piazza even as the dirt slowly covers it and the remaining Italians hang out in expensive restaurants that require a coat and tie. In Addis! Fuck them. Decent steak, though. But only decent. But it is the qat shops I want. It is a mission. And as the statue of Menelek comes into view, sitting astride his metal horse staring at... god knows what; the buses idling in front of it? Who knows? But it marks the turning point to the butcheries and the qat. Fresh meat and piles of goat and sheep heads one dare not photograph for reasons I don't grasp. And qat. Copious amounts of qat. Bunches of stems and leaves in varying length and type and a pile of leaves that look like the mixed salad offerings at Whole Foods only far more stimulating. I'll take that. Qat in hand I meander back to Baro to sit and chew and chew and chew in what turns out to be a fruitless effort for my nightly pills to help me sleep linger on in my system rendering the qat useless. Ah well. My Norwegian friends, having already begun building the pile of beers on the table that amounts to an accounting system for the waiters, cheer me on as I chew my cud but remind me that beer is better and the night is coming. True enough.

I’ve chewed my qat like an Ethiopian, the old man says. But nothing happens. So we bring out the beers, which everyone recommends to bring you down from the qat buzz I never received. We drink on and the pile grows. We are all foreign here and foreigners to each other so we talk politics. It’s what travelers do. Well, they talk, anyway. Maybe it’s my presence that brings out the politics. We talk about guns and America. We talk about foreign policy. We talk about economics, China, and the intracacies of interdependence and… how did I end up there. But we talk and we drink and the night wears on and the urge to leave our caves at Baro grows. Our asses have moulded the couches on the patio. We must move on. Our desire for seedy dive bars emboldens us. So we leave the gates of the Baro and wander out into the cool night in search of dirt and cheap beer. But we are rebuffed. The seediest bar is closed. We are advised against going into another by the local boys smoking cigarettes at the door. They say nothing but we know that this place is not for us.

We stumble on looking for beer. We end up in The Cave. We leave one cave for another. We are patted down at the door and we step in, cross the dance floor and find a quieter room in the back. It looks like a cave and smells like piss. The urinal is nearby but it is quieter and we can see the stage with people doing Ethiopian Karaoke and dancing. Everyone knows the lyrics and there is no machine to tell you what or when to sing. I ponder singing ‘American Girl’ but can’t remember the lyrics. My Norwegian friends are no help. We order 20 birr beers and stare through the archway at the people dancing. No one notices us. We smoke and we drink and we watch. We watch people dancing, shaking their shoulders like they are in an epileptic fit, bouncing, shaking, dancing. Who says only white people can’t dance? Everyone is dancing, singing, and we just sit and watch. We are spectators, an audience unnoticed. People mingle around us but we aren’t there. From our back cave the light comes through and someone smacks an ancient disco ball with coloured lights. The coulours swirl about the room and the ball dangles from a cord looking like it might crash onto the girl who sent it swirling. Her companion smacks it again and the lights swirl wildly. The light from the dance floor comes in illuminating a woman’s velour pants, tight things that look like stretched sweat pants over a massive ass. Pants that have long since been worn out stretch across her cheeks and break into threads at her feet. The fuzzy velour is missing in parts and reminds me of my couch. Maybe she is working. Maybe she isn’t. I grow tired of the place and walk through the crowd onto the shining streets. It has rained. The sheen of water makes the road look like black ice. The street is slick, the filth and oil merely moistened not washed away. It’s the dry season yet it rains. The locals say it’s bad for the farmers. How is rain bad for a farmer? I don’t know. I pass on old man, a monk. He has an umbrella and walks with a large stick, his shoulders covered with homespun cloth and his face looks chiseled with his goatee. Why is he here? Is it morning again? No. It’s still early. I wander on, knock on the gate, shout my broken non-existent Amharic and sleep.

Tomorrow I will wander the streets of Addis again going from meeting to meeting, waiting and waiting, and wandering on to another meeting and setting up a meeting for another day. This is Addis. Or at least this is my time in Addis.

Oops!

Have to apologise about the bad grammar and poor editing in the last post. I really need to edit if I am going to cut and paste some things... No excuses. I leave it as is as evidence that 12 years of higher education does not mean one ought not edit. Though, it is La Grande Illusion not Le....

Uzbekistan and anger...

Hello, all- but a particular hello to my parents, Mellissa, and Patrick, a father once again!,



Sorry it has been a while since I've written but it's not always easy to find the time to write or an internet cafe that works at a pace a bit faster than molasses moving uphill in winter. I'm in Uzbekistan at the moment- and for many moments in the foreseeable future. For the more geographically challenged, to find Uzbekistan simply find Afghanistan on the map and move slightly north and to the west a touch. If your map is old it might even still have the Aral Sea on it, which in reality no longer exists due to the brilliance of Soviet agricultural engineering. It's also south of Kazakhstan, which is west of China, but I'm not sure if that will help much. Perhaps one ought to Google it if my guide still leaves you a bit bewildered as to where I have landed. In any event, I am doing fine despite having yet again caught some sort of bug or parasite. I woke up last night in a furious chill and cold sweat and a stomach that seemed hell bent on showing me what the worst cramps of PMS must be like (if it is anything like PMS than my due condolences to all women! I will never question you again when you complain of cramps). Given that the daily temperature here hovers above 44 degrees centigrade (comfortably over 100 degrees Fahrenheit) it seems unlikely that I was simply cold. Even with the A/C on in my room, I still sleep with little more than a sheet, more out of a sense of security and modesty than necessity, I should think. In short, it's hot. But I left home with a veritable pharmacy in my pack so I'm giving whatever I have the beating it deserves with a heavy does of Metronidazole! (Here's hoping that Mellissa brings some good pills from the US and does not need them so I can restock!)



Though I have been lax in writing I have actually been writing on my computer and have some things to post on my little blog once I find a country that lacks a paranoid dictator that blocks blogs as if they were truly a source of danger to the regime. But for now I guess I should simply tell you how I ended up here in the first place for it was not something I thought would happen. But these things do happen when travelling. It probably started when I made my way to western Mongolia only to find out that the only way to Kazakhstan was to fly over the mountains or procure a Russian visa and wander through their country. But that meant a trip back to UB and since it took me forever to get to this part of Mongolia that was simply not an option. So I simply found a flight over the mountains and into Kazakhstan, landing in a veritable slice of Russia, Ost Komenogorsk (SP?). Finding a flight should have been easy but I encountered my first taste of mildly corrupt bureaucracy here. I also discovered it pays to know people. So after being told that there were absolutely no seats on the weekly plane to Kazakhstan, I found someone who knew someone whose uncle was the head of the airport and he could help. And so he did. But for a small 'fee'. This fee was not an outright bribe, mind you- I've mastered the art of handing those out without actually handing over a bribe, though. Rather I was sold a ticket for locals and handed over the difference in price between what foreigners pay and locals pay. And miraculously a seat became available. (I was, however, rather miffed to find out that as I entered my glorious, and terrifyingly ancient looking plane, replete with an angry, chain smoking Russian pilot who sat comfortably in front of our luggage, which was simply stacked in the front row seats of the plane, that there were indeed many seats on this SCAT flight- yes, that was the name of the airline). But I made it to Kazakhstan after a slightly terrifying flight (no biggy to most, I should think, but I hate flying even in the US where safety standards not only exist but are generally enforced). Maybe these Russian planes just look like they will fall apart- as the propeller began to turn and make a horrible sound, I noticed that the metal around the engine seemed to shake violently as if it were merely taped down with Canadian glue- or maybe it was the Hail Mary's, tosses of vodka, or any manner and number of promises I made to any god and gods that I could think to help me land safely but I arrived and almost kissed the ground when I landed.



After Mongolia, a land that brings new meaning to barren, the site of trees- and gardens!- in Ost Komen was a pleasant surprise. I ended up staying there for more than the day or so I had planned. But I still needed a Chinese visa and I needed to find out if my original plan of going to China via Kyrgyzstan was still viable. It's not- fighting has erupted again near the Uzbek border, which for some reason means that the Chinese, paranoid as every other regime in this neighbourhood, randomly shuts the border. So finding myself in Kazakhstan, I had to figure out how to get to China. Though Kazakhstan shares a lengthy border with China, it seems the Chinese are disinclined to hand out tourist visas. What to do? After being rebuffed by the Chinese twice I discovered that the only way to get a Chinese tourist visa was to go to Tashkent, which is in Uzbekistan. Sure, this makes sense. I mean why not head several hundred miles in the opposite direction of China to a country with absolutely NO border with China to get a Chinese visa. But so it was. As this would take a few days to get my visa this meant I had to stay in Almaty a bit.



Almaty is actually a charming, if slightly expensive city. It looks like a slightly cheaper version of Switzerland. The city is framed by high mountains and sharp peaks that are permanently snow capped. Along the streets flows a steady stream of water, which comes down from the mountains and is channeled through a simple irrigation network that keeps water going flowing around most of the city most of the time. So it is quite green and rather cool. But as in Mongolia, and as I am finding in Central Asia in general, it is very hard to meet people. So far, beyond the rare English speaking local, I have only managed to meet expats- and they deserve an essay completely to themselves and this will come in due time. After a few days alone in Almaty I simply headed to the nearest posh looking bar to find someone to talk to or at least get a beer from the tap. And so I ended up befriending several expats and a few Russian prostitutes (they dislike the term 'hooker') that hung out at the bar. But don't judge me! I simply befriended these prostitutes! But I did learn a lot about prostitution in Almaty. (I'll have to write up something another day about my experiences wandering around the world of sex in Asia). I also learned a lot about prostitution from several of the expats who seemed to have more 'intimate' knowledge of this world than I did. And these expats came in all forms. I met the business/commerce envoy of a country that I cannot divulge, a number of people working in the petrochemical business, and a few odd ducks that seemed to be in Almaty on business but business of what kind I cannot say. And all seemed inclined to chat me up. More often than once I also managed to have my entire tab paid as well. Such was Almaty. But after a while I had to leave and since I needed to be in China I had to head to Uzbekistan and this was and is an experience I will likely never forget.



Everyone who goes to Central Asia will tell you that you will encounter bureaucracy like none other. And this is quite true and simply part of travelling here. You deal with it. I have few complaints, to be honest. To get my visa meant going to the consulate in Almaty, which I did, bag in tow, after my first day in Almaty. It was 10AM and I was rebuffed by the burly Kazakh guard who simply shouted- and I do mean shout- TWO O'CLOCK! Okay, okay. I get it. No need to yell. Perhaps he, like most Americans, felt I might only understand his foreign tongue if he simply spoke loudly. But like most places here it pays to know people and I have been blessed to simply 'know' such people by merely bumping into them. So as I sat in front of the consulate pondering my next move a man sweeping the streets came up to me and in perfect English asked me if I needed some help. How is it that an old man cleaning the streets and with more gaps in his smile than the Canadian national hockey team somehow speaks perfect English? Who knows? Who cares? After a bit of conversation he told me to sit down for a bit and he'd chat with the guards. After a few minutes the guards opened the gates and in I went. All I could do was drop off my paperwork. No need to pay or leave my passport, which left me free to try the Chinese embassy- AGAIN. I learned later when I came to pick up my visa that most people have to show up well before the TWO O'CLOCK visa time and wait to drop off their paperwork. This I managed to avoid. Well, not exactly. I did have to spend time waiting to get the visa but I didn't have to do it twice like the Belgian couple I met. And I didn't have to come back a second day after waiting 9 hours only to be told the office was now closed like the Finnish couple I met. I simply had to wait. This involved a bizarre ritual of showing up, getting your name on one list, waiting, being called in and getting placed on yet another list, and a fair amount of praying that you would move from this list and into the consul's office to either pick up your visa or drop off your paperwork. What fun! But it was also the only place in over a month where I ran into several fellow travellers all of whom remarked that they too had not met anyone until they sat in front of the Uzbek embassy waiting for a visa. We have since formed the Uzbek Embassy club and are meeting up in Uzbekistan (I've already spent the day with the Finnish couple and I am meeting up with the Italian in a few days). These are the moments I enjoy most in travelling.



But, mom, dad, Mellissa, Patrick the new father, and everyone else I have haphazardly e-mailed this story to, at this point I had yet to actually get to Uzbekistan on my meandering journey to China. This required a train ride out of leafy Almaty to the more 'Kazakh' city of Shymkent and a taxi to the border. It also was the beginning of my trip into the rabbit hole of Uzbek bureaucracy, mobs, gate crashers, screaming babies with screaming mothers, unbearable heat, scams, more scams, and a few thrown elbows to simply move forward into this damn country. Many people I have met have said they had problems with the police in Kazakhstan. I never had a single problem. I was registered properly and I simply never had any run-ins with them. This was true until I began my train ride to Shymkent where I was told- by a fucking train conductor, no less!- that, 'oh no. Big problem. BIG problem. Money fix problem, yes?' What problem, I asked? I knew I had to show my ID to get on the train because in Kazakhstan, as on planes, train tickets have your name on them and you must show ID to get on. But what problem could I have and what problem would a lowly train conductor be able to notice let alone fix? Ah. The registration stamps, he says. No, I replied. In point of fact the police, or more precisely the Office of Visa and Immigration Registration where one gets the registration stamps, told me that I did not indeed have any problems. But this tool, this knob, this asshole, this simpleton, who did not speak enough English beyond his ability to say 'problem' and 'money', would not let me on the train until we fixed this. Or until I simply, and quietly, began a stream of utterly nonsensical English- why bother to think something out if your audience cannot understand you?- until this jackass gave me my passport back and let me on the train.



The train ride was actually quite nice. In my little cabin was an older woman who, after the train started on its way, pulled out a tea set, a jar of sweets, a tin of cookies, jam, some sort of honey and walnut compote that she later insisted I take with me (it was divine), some bread, and a plate of homemade meat dumplings. In all my time these past few months when someone speaks to me in Russian or Mongolian or Kazakh or simply any language I clearly do not speak, I usually respond by saying that I don't speak whatever it is you speak and that I speak English and French. Mostly people say they don't speak English. But as I did much the same as I always do when spoken to in Kazakh, this nice old woman looked at me, then seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then in halting French said 'Je parle un petit-peu Francais'. And so over tea and cookies that she, like a grandmother, insisted I must eat we spoke in French the whole evening. It was a nice way to end my trip in Kazakhstan and it gives me something to cling to in the way of pleasantness that I have not experienced much of since for when we arrived in Shymkent at the ungodly hour of 5AM I began my descent into the Central Asian abyss.



As soon as I stepped off the train I was, for the first time, asked by a policeman- in his goofy, giant brimmed Soviet era hat- to show my passport. Once again I got a shaking head and an 'Oh, no. Big problem. Big problem. Follow'. And off we went into a darker area of the train station, which always means bribe time! After finding a nice, dark area of the train station he began, again in halting English, to try and tell me that my registration paperwork was not in order. 'Big problem. Big problem'. (This, beyond 'money' appears to be all that the police can say). What big problem, I said? Oh, registration. May I see my passport? Yank! Go fuck yourself. I got my passport and you're not getting any cash. And off I walked to a less dimly lit area, policeman in tow telling me I need money to fix 'big problem' until he gave up after it was clear that I would not part with any money for a non-existent problem. What fun!



But at 5AM I am not at my best and this came to be my 'big problem' for the day. After leaving behind the wanker I had to find a taxi to the border. This was easily done. Well, finding the taxi was, anyhow. But after feeling like I was getting cheated when he asked for money for gas, and not from anyone else in our shared taxi, I did manage to arrive at the border and without paying for more than the gas. Unfortunately, he took me to the wrong border crossing, which in retrospect was likely quite deliberate. Some locals said I could not cross. They all said this was not for foreigners and that I needed to go to Jalama 100 kilometers away! But I showed them the text message from the Finns showing that I could indeed cross nearby by at the border crossing I had already told the driver to take me to. But by this point the driver was long gone and I was stuck swearing like a motherfucker and having to negotiate another damn taxi ride to the right border, which the locals also insisted was not possible to cross. And after taking me on a short, five minute ride for the same price I had paid for my half hour trip to this crossing, I got to the correct border post. But I needed to change some money and my new 'friends' said they could help me with this as they could speak Kazakh and the money changers would not understand my English (sure, but everyone understands cash and a calculator can easily spell out the exchange rate). After a great deal of arguing with me while I was being quite obstinate about using them to change money at all- some part of my traveller's brain was still working- I broke down and said they could help me change fifty US but no more. They looked dismayed- and I now know why- but said okay. Here is where I got fucked. I was told the exchange rate was one thousand sum to one dollar, which was off by about 1600 sum it turns out. I do not believe the woman who exchanged the money actually cheated me. She did hand over a massive stack of bills (the highest bill here, as in Myanmar, is 1000 sum, which means I am yet again literally carrying around stacks of cash). But my 'friend', in a slight of hand I must admit was quite skillful he managed to pocket half of the money before he handed it to me. So I lost 25 dollars. Oh well. But they were not done trying to scam me. No, no, not at all! They wanted to help me avoid the long line and jump to the front and promptly introduced me to a burley Russian who could do this- for fifty bucks. While talking with him, though, these two 'friends' disappeared and that is when I knew I was just screwed over. It turns out this Russian was honest but after what had just happened I decided to not to spend anymore cash and I found a place in the growing mob in front of the gate.



I do not use the word mob lightly or hyperbolically. This was indeed a mob. I mass of humans swarming in front of any entrance they could to get through the border. I was the only foreigner. Every time the gate opened the mob surged forward and I had to grab my bags and move with the mass. But this mob wasn't very big and a few solidly thrown elbows from the border guards kept them mostly in check. I managed to get through the Kazakh side after only 40 minutes or so with the help of a nice couple I met who insisted to the border guard that I was their friend and should enter with them. With the Kazakh mob behind me I rather smoothly proceeded through customs and passport control to exit Kazakhstan- and I did not have 'big problem' with my registration papers and was politely sent on my way with a courteous 'enjoy your trip' from the guard. It's amazing how quickly the world can change in a mere 100 meters. After leaving passport control I joined another mob in front of a flimsy gate that, as soon as I arrived, came crashing down and the mob ran the 100 meters or so to the next mob waiting at the next gate to get into the Uzbek customs office. I did not much feel like running and was fine to sit at the back of the mob, even though it looked like this mob was 4 times the size of the one on the Kazakh side, which confused me. Where did these people come from? So I joined the mob and began the most hellish experience of my life.



Crossing borders by land is always a bizarre experience in and of itself where the notion of a border becomes somehow both real and distantly abstract like something out of the French film, Le Grande Illusion. The border is more than a simple line that exists in the minds of men only, though this is also quite true. The border exists as a bureaucratic and often blatant military/militsya affair. Sometimes there is a stream or some physical 'line' to demarcate a border but often it exists solely because of an arbitrarily placed gate surrounded by wasteland and sometimes mines. But until now the worst experience I have had crossing a border has been the border between Thailand and Cambodia. Even at the time, though, I knew it wasn't that bad. Sure, there were lengthy lines, heat and humidity, and angry looking men with Kalshnikovs. And, yes, I did encounter an angry looking border guard who, along with a small group of local taxi drivers, were shouting at each other and thrusting twenty dollar bills at me. But they didn't want a bribe. The officer simply wanted to know if the twenties were real- this was when the new bill had just been released. They were and off I went. No, what makes that border crossing a horrible experience is where you enter once you're in Cambodia: Poipet. This is, and remains, the most horrible city I have ever been to. It is a disgusting mess of the worst aspects of mankind- I dare not use the word 'humanity' for that conjures up something at least somewhat decent, humane, civilised. Poipet is a town you leave as soon as you arrive. That is unless you want to gamble with unscrupulous gangsters or sleep with little boys (no, once again I do not venture into hyperbole in my description here). Poipet will always have a place in my mind as a special slice of hell but after my crossing into Uzbekistan it has been easily replaced on the list of worst experiences of my life.



After leaving the Kazakh side of the border I quietly joined the new mob waiting to enter the Uzbek customs and passport control office. It had only been an hour since I had joined the last mob on the Kazakh side so I felt that this mob too would move forward somehow. In the end I would spend 5 hours in this mass of stinking armpits, crying babies, screaming mothers, shoving crowds, gate crashers that ran to the front of the mob and muscled their way through and I slowly descended into the worst aspects of my being as I came to hate the masses around me. These were not people. I would wait in this mob for 5 hours and move forward in increments measurable in inches either dragged forward or moving forward by brute force. I kid you not. In this mob, where I was almost crushed on several occasions, where I was literally ensconced in a mass of what I came to feel were animals of the worst kind, I found some very dark parts of my being that I had never encountered before. Before it was over I could have killed anyone there for the shit they pulled. I thought of grabbing my leatherman, which was in my pocket, more than once and giving it to the latest person to ram into me, step on my feet, shove my bags aside in their stupid attempt to make it to the front or simply use it to smash back the crowd that tried to drag my body with them as they surged forward anytime the guard let a person through the door. After 5 hours I truly had descended and began throwing elbows and swearing at old women, men, snotty children being used by their parents to find a space farther ahead; I began shoving aside anyone that came near me and simply throwing a sly punch into the occasional set of ribs that rammed into me. As I waited I saw that a new mob would form back in Kazakhstan and in a mad dash they would run across the border and try to run to the front of the line where, despite the blows of the guard, many would remain. And I would stare at the door that seemed to never get closer. The bottom was reached when a disgusting middle-aged hag jabbed me in my ribs a few times too many, threw me a dirty look when I yelled- uselessly in English- at her telling her that we could not move forward as the guard was shoving us back, and then somehow knocked me over and off my feet to move forward. I lost it. I said things that, while I have surely said them before, I have not strung together into the stream of profanity that spewed forth from me at that moment. I shoved this woman well back into the beasts around me and yelled with such anger that though she didn't understand a word of what I said she knew I was angry and had lost it. After that the guard let me in but only 20 minutes after she had somehow inveigled her way in. But I met her in line at passport control where she left to ask someone something. I promptly stepped forward into her place. When she tried to reclaim her spot I swiftly turned my body thrusting my backpack into her and sending her off, almost falling to the floor. She must have figured something out for later in the customs line (or mob) she actually moved aside for me. But maybe that was because she got a yelling from the guard after I knocked her aside and let forth another tirade.



After this I tried to regain some sense of normalcy. I still had to get through customs and deal with the bureaucracy. And what bureaucracy! There may be a reason few people thought I could cross this border. It seems foreigners could only cross in the past week. As such few people at the border knew what special forms or policies applied to foreigners- and I don't mean other people from Central Asia. We westerners are subject to all manner of stupidity here! But I was lucky. Somehow one of the guards, after seeing me stare at the forms in Russian, handed me three English forms and told me to fill out 2 copies, which I did. I knew to do this because the Finns had failed to fill out two forms and had texted me that they were having a terrible time getting registered in Tashkent (more on that below). I needed two forms and all the requisite stamps. And I had to account for every dollar, tenge, sum, Euro, or Krueger Rands I happened to have on me. The Finns had forgotten to list a mere 2 dollars, which was found during a thorough search of their bags. Their time at the border was probably worse than mine. But after explaining what on earth my climbing gear was, I got my stamps and left. It was over. I had made it! And as I left the customs office and entered Uzbekistan the sun came out and I realised I had been blessed in one sense: the sun was not shining the entire time I had been waiting. The temperature quickly sored and I became acutely aware of how fucking hot this country was going to be!



So here I am in Bukhara after a sweltering, absolutely sweltering train ride in what seemed like a sauna cabin- shit you not- from Tashkent. My time in Tashkent was a mess of bureaucracy and befuddlement. I had arranged to couchsurf in Tashkent (look it up). But this turned out to be problematic as foreigners- or westerners to be more precise- must register within 72 hours and must account for everyday they are in Uzbekistan with either ticket stubs or registration papers one can only get from official hotels. As I was couchsurfing this was not possible. But I did get my Chinese visa! That was hassle free. I also got my ticket to China, though that did involve me running around trying to find a phone to call my bank when it dawned on me that I had not notified them that I would be in Uzbekistan and that they might block the transaction. In the end they said it was fine but not until I spent 3 hours trying to find a place that had Skype that worked- I never found such a place. I ended up spending 12 dollars to make the 4 minute call to find this out. And now that I am Bukhara I have finally gotten some registration papers and met up with the Finns. We shared our horror stories and pondered a way around their lack of customs forms and their new problem that emerged from probably the only good luck they had: finding a functioning ATM. I searched all of Tashkent and have not found one functional ATM. But they did and they took out some extra money only to learn that they cannot leave the country with more money than they brought in without bank certificates! What fun!



Enough of that, though. I am finally here and illness aside I feel like I have finally wandered into Central Asia. The daytime temperatures hover around 44-46 degrees. I spend my time wandering the streets in a meandering path from shadow to shadow; I cling to walls and the small shade they cast; And I wander around the back alleys of this city staring at mud and straw walls (there is a newer town farther from me but why go there?). The back alleys are unmarked and I just accept that I will get lost. I use the tall, 700 year old minaret and what remains of the old fort- bombed by the Soviets, of course- as rough markers of my location and I just get lost in narrow streets and crumbling walls. The city, the old city, appears to be nothing remarkable until you come across hole in a wall that reveals the inner courtyards of homes with tall, intricately carved wooden pillars holding up verandas with equally, intricately carved ceilings with faded paint. They look hundreds of years old and maybe they are. The courtyards are almost consumed by the shade of these tall verandas and the remaining space is overgrown with all manner of plants for Bukhara, despite the dust and baked appearance, is an oasis. Water, admittedly rather dirty water, flows through the middle of the city in a decently sized canal and via smaller irrigation canals to most of the rest of the old town. This is an old place and one can feel it everywhere. There are medrassas that are 600 or 700 years old with signs in English giving you the history but only teasing you for you cannot enter such places of holy learning. There are old mosques capped by shining blue tiles, and everywhere small markets with little domes forming the roof giving them a bubbled appearance from afar. There are silk dealers and spice dealers and old men who sell soviet memorabilia, pins of Lenin, but strangely not one pin with the Uzbek flag. Children are still given pins of Lenin here and after they finish high school they pass them onto the dealers who peddled them to tourists. But at this time of year there are few tourists. Just the sun and a few brave (stupid?) travellers who ignore the sun and slather their bodies in SPF 500 and hit the streets (I am practically bronze! I look like I did in an old photo of me and my brother when we were quite little, wearing Hawaiian themed clothes made by my late grandmother Turner. Only my tan stops at the shirt line and the Minnesota white emerges to make banish any thought of a shirtless day in the son to even things out). The canal ends at Lyabi Hauz, the only place in town with just a touch of touristy kitsch and the only place for decent shashlyk- skewers of grilled meat. Sure, most of the sites are not quite as spectacular as one might hope but I enjoy wandering around until the sun rises too high to let the walls cast shadows and I scurry back to my hotel by bolting from tree to tree in my attempts to find shade. Then I collapse in my air conditioned room until evening when I can once again venture outside.

The Russian Jeep

If you spend anytime in Mongolia you're bound to come across one of these things. Maybe not in UB as they seem to fancy Hummers and Land Cruisers or just simply old beat up cars in the capital. But nobody ever came to Mongolia to hang out in UB. They all head for the countryside and they usually end up in a Russian jeep. And in the countryside the Russian jeep- or its 'minivan' variant- is everywhere. These are beasts to behold. They really ought to be called Soviet jeeps as they have all the charm, comfort, and class of a Soviet apartment block. They are a hulking mass of metal, the embodiment of a society centred on industrialisation; they are a living reminder of Stalin's vision of a new Russia, one built on metal and industry and where society itself moves in lockstep as a massive engine moving forward as one. Mongolians simply call these jeeps 'machine'. An apt term. And machines they are! They are pure metal. The dashboard is simple: metal. Across this metal landscape are a few knobs, buttons, lights, and a simple speedometer. It looks like the interior of an airplane, an old airplane from the days when there were few things to keep track of: speed, oil pressure, battery. That's it. The only attempt at decoration in the machine is a small little plastic flower encased in the clear plastic knob of the stick shift. All is metal. The doors are metal, though often covered with parts of rugs, the floor is metal, the steering wheel is metal, the bumper, the grill, the machine!; all is metal except for the seat, though you wouldn't know it from sitting on it. There are no seat-belts, at least not on the ones I saw. The safety features consist simply of a padded ceiling and a gently curved bar of steel- the 'oh shit' bar, so called because when you need to grab it, that's usually what you yell. There's not even much spring in the seat. It's as stiff and cold as the machine itself. As you bounce through the Mongolian countryside you feel as if the seat was designed to constantly remind you that you are in the machine; maybe even just part of it. You won't survive a crash in one of these beasts. But the machine will. You are but a cog in the machine. Like Stalin's Russia, you may die but the machine will continue on.

Russian jeeps are a mechanic's kind of vehicle. In fact you have to be a mechanic to even drive one. All jeep drivers (and basically all Mongolians, really) are mechanics. Everything on the jeep can be removed with the simplest of tools and invariably, bouncing down the rocky jeep tracks of Mongolia, something will break or crack or simply cease to function in that way that only the driver seems to sense is not right. And within the cavernous metal beast lies a storage compartment at every turn. The doors, the floor, under the seats, everything doubles as storage. And from every corner of the machine my driver would inevitably pull out another set of tools, a hammer, some wrenches, a can of oil, even an old fashioned hand crank just in case the battery died- it doubles as a tool to keep the back door open too. There's a tire iron that doubles as a sort of anvil when one needs to pound a recalcitrant part of the machine back into shape. There are wracks, rods, boxes, pieces of metal, spare parts all of which seem to emerge from the machine; all has its place and the driver knows it all (somehow I think my father would have gotten along with my driver. Everything had a place and only that place). When you drive these machines you expect them to break. You carry spare parts. You pick them up when you find them randomly in the desert- as we did- and you put them anywhere you can. Everything has a function it was made for and a function that ingenuity and necessity has created. The heater for the windshield hold numerous little screwdrivers- and a pen. Around the stick shift were various gaskets of all sizes- and duct tape, Canadian glue. Beneath of the seats was simply a tin of nuts and bolts, god knows what for, but the driver knew. And each had a purpose. There's nothing a good driver can't fix. The machine was built for this. And Mongolia was built for the machine.

The machine is not comfortable at all. It has no shocks to speak of. One bounces along on even the smoothest of roads, every crack seemingly magnified into an ass pounding ride. But there is no road, no path, no pile of rocks that this machine can't cross. It seems to go on forever. It has two gas tanks. I have no idea why. They lie on each side of the machine and invariably leave the inside with the odour of petrol such that you wonder what might happen if you lit a cigarette. The driver can toggle between these two tanks when one gets empty. But I sat long and hard and wondered why there were two tanks and not simply one large one. But this is a Soviet jeep. It is built on Soviet ideas. The two tanks, like the Soviet system itself, give the illusion of plenty, the illusion of having more than you really have. An empty tank? No! Just hit a switch and you have more. But you always had it. It was always there. You could smell that it was there.

Riding along in the Mongolian countryside, bouncing away and being at least somewhat thankful for the padded ceiling, little of this- save the gas tanks- comes into your mind. All of this sits within the machine and you sit within it carried along from one point to another. But at the end of each day as the driver unpacked the Tetris set that was our gear you came to understand the relationship between the driver and the machine. Every driver knows his jeep. It's his. It doesn't belong to a tour company. He owns it. He knows every inch of it. And each night as my guide cooked up another dish with sausage or something our driver would go over every inch of the machine polishing it, dusting out the insides, shaking out the dirt, and scrubbing away the mud. Every day ended like this. And every driver we met did the same. For ten days we bounced across the desert and went over the mountains. And every day the jeep was caked in dirt. More than once my Spanish companion wondered whether our driver was mad. 'It's just going to get dirty again tomorrow. Why wipe it down every day?' I have no idea, but these drivers take their machines seriously, perhaps lovingly.

Every driver cleans his jeep everyday. But he also checks it over thoroughly. More than once while driving mad down some road our driver would open the door- no seat belts, remember?- and stare back at the rear left tire. Something was amiss. Or maybe not. Only the driver knew. Every evening after cleaning the machine, up comes the hood, or off comes a tire. Something must be tinkered with. One morning, god knows where, I woke up in the sauna that had become my tent. The sun was up and I had misjudged which way was east and so the full fury of the Gobi sun baked me in my tent. But outside our driver was bouncing around like he was hopped up on a gallon of coffee he never seemed to drink. He was replacing the seal on the driver's side door. Why? I have no idea. It wasn't right, he said. Where on earth did he get a new seal, though? Nevermind. This is a Russian jeep. He probably had three or four extra seals somewhere in the machine along with the sandpaper and glue to get it to stick properly.

Our jeep, and in fairness our driver, did everything that was asked of it. There is no such thing as a road in Mongolia. Anything is a road. A stream is a road. Rocks are a road. Sand, gravel, even the potholed 'roads' are easily traversed by the machine. Only once did we overdo it. But I blame my Spanish companion for this. We were in the mountains. It was one of the few times I felt truly cold and had spent the evening wearing everything I had. It had rained. We woke up to a damp, drizzling world of swollen rivers and creeks and we were smack in the middle of it. After our tetris game to get the gear in the jeep we had to find an easy path to get out of the mountains. But everywhere we went a river raged or a creek had become a river. After following what normally would have been a dry little depression snaking through the valley we came to a place where the new creek seemed to spread out. It gave us hope that we might be able to ford several smaller creeks. But where? Our Spanish friend suggested one path and, for the first and only time our driver seemed confused and, as such, followed this suggestion. We revved the engine, through the beast into 4-wheel drive, oriented machine to get across the small creek by the surest path, and we arranged ourselves in the jeep to prepare to be tossed. But after this build up we simply stalled out half-way up the embankment. We had flooded the engine with water. But this is a Russian jeep! Our driver pondered the situation a bit as we all made our way out the front door so as to avoid the cold stream. After a little while he climbed over the hood and into the machine and came out with sack. Inside were two coils of heavy duty webbing. We were going to pull the beast out. And so we did. It seemed all quite effortless, like this was just something the machine in driver were always prepared for.

After ten days of wandering around central and southern Mongolia we were at last headed back to the relative comfort of UB. We plodded along in silence. We were all tired and dirty. I had a funk like a Frenchmen. Even I couldn't stand lifting my arms too high. But our driver had a pensive look on his face. He wasn't randomly opening the door to check the tire- or whatever else he might be checking when he did this. He stared at the barren dashboard. Were we low on gas? Battery getting funny? I have no idea but he looked concerned. Something wasn't right and only the driver knew what it was. We crested a hill and pulled up alongside a new 4-wheel drive Mitsubishi- immaculate despite the desert- and pointed the jeep into the wind. After ten days of the desert, mountain rains, mud, fording swollen creeks, crashing over numerous rocks, plowing through ditches, and god knows what else, here, a mere four hours from UB our jeep was over heating. We all got out. There was nothing our driver could do but wait. We went over and joined an older man and his family. He had a bad back. He wore some sort of harness. The drivers chatted, they always chatted.

If you pass a jeep in the desert you stop. You chat. You talk about the road ahead. And you talk about your jeep. I assume it was much the same when people went across the desert on horse or camel too. It seemed an old custom and a useful one. I have no idea what these two men were talking about. Probably something about the jeep. I wandered off to find a place to piss; someplace where the damn Gobi wind wouldn't catch me by surprise again. When I came back I saw that our driver and the old man were standing by the jeep, the old man had a curious look about him. He looked at the jeep with a sense of pride. He took out his camera. He and the driver began going over the jeep, pointing out this and that. The old man had a smile on his face like he was talking proudly about his son. This was his jeep. He had sold it years ago. And now it was Oggi's, our driver. They were swapping stories about the machine. They were pointing out each little thing they had changed, something they had added, a personal touch here and there. They shared a special relationship with this machine, this specific jeep that I will never quite understand. But after nearly two weeks in Mongolia in this jeep I came to respect it. The jeep had seen a lot and would surely see much more. It was an old beast but a sturdy machine. As we headed back to UB I wondered who Oggi might pass this jeep on to and whether he too would come across it again.

Vignettes of a Mongolian Misadventure: Lessons Learned

Vodka: In college I had a love affair with tequila. And Oh! what a love affair it was! It was like an angel pissing down my throat; burning as it flew down to the bowels, bringing me, all of us (for it is a social lover) into the warm embrace of a good buzz. We had rituals, practically the sacrament. Salt, liquor, lime, love. At first I rejected the burning embrace of this seductive mistress. But, being a man, and tequila being the temptress she is, I quickly returned and the love affair began and on it went throughout college. It was fun, it was wild, we experimented, we went crazy places, but like all love affairs it ended badly. Like a lover scorned, we still don't speak. Of all the liquors tequila has the pride of place of being the only thing I won't drink.

As a man who likes cocktails vodka has never held much esteem in my mind. I've always kept some vodka on hand, however. It's easy to work with. Women like it- god knows why- and it's good for a quick, frozen shot before a good winter bike ride, though bourbon's better. Good vodka simply has no taste; it simply is. It has no place in a drink except as a medium for some other, usually fruity, flavour. I do like a good vodka martini, though it's probably just the vermouth. I take my martinis increasingly with gin these days. But after my time in Mongolia I must now add vodka to the pantheon of booze that 'thou shall not touch.'

It's not just that every journey, every meeting, everything really, starts and ends with some vodka in Mongolia. Or maybe that IS it. I don't really know. I only know that if I never see a bottle of vodka again I certainly won't notice. I had no affair with vodka. No love to scorn. It was merely an acquaintance. But there is a reason we keep certain people as 'acquaintances'. There's nothing about them that brings them into your circle of friends. But in Mongolia I was forced to live and breathe in the presence of this damn shit far too long! Oh what a vile bottle of piss that shit is!

Maybe it started at Choir (pronounced chore). Why was in Choir, anyway? It took me forever to convince the woman at the train station in UB that, yes, I needed two tickets. One to Choir and another from Choir to Sainshand; a sleeper, please. None of that third class shit for this traveller. Yes, I understood that the train stopped in Choir. All of seven minutes. No, I needed a few hours. There was an old Soviet air base I wanted to see. I'd heard rumours about it and, since I had little to do in UB, I thought, why not? After much confusion I got my tickets and here I stood, the only one on the platform; the only one getting off the train at Choir. What a view! Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a dilapidated train station ensconced in an even more dilapidated town; buildings literally crumbling. Amidst the rubble stood a shining statue. Soviet, of course. A stout man practically leaping skyward holding a rocket. Yes. That made perfect sense. Men hold rockets, don't they? But first things first: find some food, stash the bags.

Fuck how I hate Cyrillic. Hieroglyphs make more sense. Where WAS that damn phrase book I'd found? Soup, soup, soup. It's the only Cyrillic symbol I knew. No soup. No food. Wasn't this a restaurant? As I sat there stupefied by the menu- and more stupefied by the fact that it was increasingly looking like the only food I was going to get was the ramen noodles I brought with me-, some men sitting in the corner drinking (at the train station?) looked me over. Then a rather large fellow, large not in the fat sense but in the 'big as fuck, I could kick your ass sense' beckoned me over, gesturing at the empty chair at the table. How could I refuse? And so I joined them. I said my hellos, in English- I'm a wanker, what can I say? Silence, or was it confusion? In any event an empty glass was quietly filled- and I do mean filled- with some vodka that they had all been drinking. Sure. I can drink that. Down the hatch in a gulp. That's how it's done. Stupid mistake. My new friends suddenly became quite jovial and, I can only surmise, impressed that I, this little gringo, just downed that 'shot' like a man (yeah, I said it). And so another glass was poured. Oh what a mistake. But I had business and one of these guys knew enough English and with the phrase book I'd just found in my bag we began to try and figure out how I could get to this air base.

Well that never happened. I won't blame the booze. I blame the Mongolian military. It seems they decided that the random travellers who stopped by this air base- littered with god knows what but certainly with one or two MiG fighters long past their prime- was just not a place for pictures. Well, that's what I guessed I was being told. The English speaking fellow merely said 'military' and then made a gesture like someone shooting me. So that plan was shot. Now what? Oh, right, vodka. Lots and lots of vodka. Most of my brief time in Choir was a daze. I did something or other. I found out that, sure, Russian jeeps will climb over anything, but a four wheel drive Toyota is a hell of a lot smoother ride in the desert. I think I saw some shrine. I know I tossed some vodka into the air- for the gods. Mongolian gods, like Mongolians, like to drink I guess. I stuck my head in a hole in a rock- it was part of the vodka ritual that would answer my prayer, which I selflessly, and rather tipsily, made for someone else. And I learned just why vodka is evil. It goes down like water. After all of this, and quite a few bottles, my new friends quite kindly put me on my train to Sainshand where I promptly passed out in my sleeper only to be awoken at 2 am. I'd arrived in Sainshand.

No tequila. No Vodka. God I hate Vodka...

Milk: I'm not a big fan of milk. I don't eat much ice cream either but yogurt I can do. I don't hate the stuff, mind you, it's just never been my thing. In Mongolia, however, milk is everywhere. It's in the tea- actually it is the tea, salty tea no less (more on that later)- it's in the food, and it comes from just about every fucking animal one can think to milk. If it can be milked, it shall be milked. Cow's milk, sheep's milk, mare's milk (yes, mare, as in a horse), goat's milk, yak's milk, even camel's milk. If they don't milk dogs it's probably only because they seem to hate the animals. But, hey, at least they aren't on the menu. And so I've been getting a lot of calcium lately. It's not all bad either. After one particularly cold morning sleeping in the mountains near some nomads, Miguel, my Spanish travel companion, and I awoke to fresh yogurt that our guide had procured. Sheep's milk, I believe; maybe goat. I don't really know but seeing as there were no horses about I could at least count on it not being mare's milk (this stuff I actually managed to avoid on account that it is usually served sour and the locals know when it goes down the western gullet it tends to come back up rather quickly). But fresh yogurt. That's something. Bit sour but not bad with corn flakes.

But there are some things people do with milk that I just cannot grasp. Salty milk tea is one of them. Mongolian hospitality being what it is, no visit is complete without a bowl of milk tea and some biscuits. And in my time in the Gobi there were lots of social visits; lots of salty milk tea. Why they call it tea is beyond me. Out of a two liter jug there's about one cup of water and about enough tea leaves for half a cup of chai. The rest is warm milk. And salt. Why the fuck there's salt is beyond me but there it is. I knew this before I came to Mongolia. Everyone knows about this (in Tibet it's often yak milk and butter so maybe I lucked out). But when in Rome...

But sometimes a man, or a child- I have a big inner child-, just needs some ice cream. God was it hot in the Gobi (no shit, Sherlock- but it's also fucking cold at times so bite me for my banality). I had no idea where we were. But there was a tree or two about and that usually meant a well. And we always stopped at wells for some water. This little dusty place, however, was a town. Well, sort of. Out of the vast empty, rocky abyss that is the Gobi here lies this town. I guess it's known for its wells as all the residents have them and freely hand out the water to all comers. But god was it hot. Must stand in the shade of the jeep. Where the fuck was Miguel? He seemed to have disappeared while I sauntered off to the edge of town- taking it all in, ya know- to take a piss. I found him inside the shop, the nice cool shop. Not a bad little shop. Tires, nail polish, smokes, some clothes, and ice cream. What? There it was: a big freezer; the kind of freezer wrapped in logos that, sure, it's Cyrillic, you just know mean ICE CREAM! Oh lots and lots of ice cream! A freezer filled with ice cream bars sent from the gods; a freezer filled with little packages that I'm sure in Mongolian just meant Nestle. Yes. Yes, I'll take one. No sum is too high! But 300 togrogs was a pretty good deal (about 20 cents). Oh the gods were smiling on me! I'll buy a bottle of vodka, a small one, and toss it all to the wind, you drunken gods who give me ice cream in the Gobi!

When one climbs so high, the fall is only that much harder. How could you fuck up ice cream? Really? I mean it's ice cream. Well, this was frozen sheep's milk. No, frozen sour sheep's milk. But like salty milk tea, one plows onward...

Mutton: I was a vegetarian for 12 years. It was a good time and it made me a better cook. But those days ended and when they did (strangely, this was Sarah's fault. And she's a vegetarian!) I decided to embrace meat in all its forms. I'd never had lamb before but it sounded good. It sounded like the height of epicurean delight. Maybe that's because it always seemed a French thing to me. And so it was that my first encounter with lamb was in a French restaurant. Gave me gas but, hell, it didn't taste too bad.

Now here's another banality: in Mongolia they eat a lot of mutton. We say lamb in the US and mutton is French for, well, lamb. I suspect we say lamb instead of sheep because we generally eat the lamb, not the adult sheep. Not so in Mongolia. Why let a good sheep go to waste while she can still be milked? Better to eat the old hags. In any event every traveller goes about sounding just a touch Frenchy to me saying 'mutton'. But who cares? The problem is that Mongolian 'cuisine' leaves much to be desired. If I never eat lamb, mutton, or sheep again I'll send up a bottle of vodka to the gods weekly.

How did this come about? How did I come to loath the very thought of mutton, even the smell? Maybe it's because the only way mutton is cooked is boiled, and boiled, and boiled until it's just a bland yet appalling mess of meat and fat- lots of fat. Or maybe it's the fact that every ger in the Gobi just smells of mutton. You can't escape it. And it really is just boiled sheep. They kill the bugger, skin it, clean out the intestines and stuff the with fat (why let it go to waste?) and then boiled. It's boiled practically whole; whatever will fit in the pot goes in, head and all. No spices. You get some salt if the mutton has been dried but then between the milk tea and the heavily salted, and generally leathery mutton, you feel as if the Pacific might cleanse your palate. The Gobi is practically swimming in wild sage or thyme or something. Whatever it is it's a spice and it smells good. There are even wild onions. Yet not a drop in the pot. Just mutton and some flat noodles piled high on a plate for all to eat.

There are better ways. The Kazakhs in western Mongolia, god bless them, at least toss in some veggies. Sure it's a 40 to 1 ratio but a random carrot and potato never tasted so good! And I'll give the Kazakhs another one on their Mongolian compatriots, they bring sugar to the table when serving milk tea. Sure they generally dunk it in the tea and eat it whole, but they didn't seem to mind this queer fellow dropping it into the ubiquitous salty tea he never deigned to decline.

(Side note: after stumbling upon a Turkish restaurant in Bayan Olgii and having some grilled meat- god how I missed that!- I began to wonder, as I'm sure you might have, why it is that no one here grills their damn mutton. I had been 'informed' by a haughty ass Aussie that it's because they want to save all the fat so they can beef up for the winter. Seems plausible. Also seems stupid and a recipe for coronary disease. I, however, developed another theory. Miguel and I had for some time got this rather quixotic idea in our heads that we wanted to buy a goat and cook it. I think it came from his hearing a story about fried marmot stuffed with searing hot stones and flamed but marmots are a protected species so that was out. I say 'quixotic' because what really were we to do, the two of us, with a whole goat? But moreover as we tried from time to time to put this plan into action we began to wonder how we'd grill the beast. My theory is that people boil everything because there's no wood around and they use dried shit to heat the stove. Would you eat grilled mutton over a shit fire? I think it's as good a theory as the fat fucker hypothesis).

Toilets: Warning, if you don't care for bowel humour, which is a sad thing I must say, or just can't handle a discussion of all things shit- or you're eating- then feel free to skip this part. But travellers talk shit. We talk a lot of shit and we talk a lot about shit. We even play a card game called shit head. We have to talk shit. It's part of life but it's an important part of a traveller's life. Where to shit? How was the shit? No shit? That's not good. A good shit means good health. A bad shit means hit the Cipro. We talk shit for a lot of reasons. A lot of us travel solo. We get ill and the first sign of trouble is often the morning's shit (and goddamn is it hard to shit a squatter when you've got the splatter). But sometimes it's nothing. Sometimes we need Cipro. But we talk shit because we talk about our health. We diagnose each other, 'that kind of shit is a beer shit. No worries.' 'But that kind of shit means a parasite. No Cipro for you, my friend. You need something else.' And so on we go. It's part of life. I've met travellers weary of this talk or simply disgusted by it. Fuck em. We talk shit for a good reason. Sometimes it's awfully damn funny too, like the story of Miguel's friend who, for reasons we couldn't grasp, could never shit while clothed. He lived in China so there wasn't always paper- or nice toilets- and yet off the clothes went. Sometimes he'd come back without a sock. Shit is funny. George Carlin thought so.

But it's useful. We swap info on where to find the best toilets in a city- I know a great one in Paris near the main library. It's positively Victorian and downright luxurious. Nice mirrors, potted plants, marble floors, clean toilets, and you can even get your shoes shined- not while you shit, mind you- and all of this just sitting beneath the pavement in the middle of Paris. There is even a website- or there was- called the good loo guide. It was filled with maps of cities and the locations, ratings, and commentaries on freely available toilets. These are important things for we've all had our horror stories.

When you travel you have to make do. We can't always get what we're used to and sometimes we must embrace the novel. I've mastered the squat- well, not really but I'm working on it. I've embraced the hose, or what my Welsh friend Abbi (in her cute way) calls the 'bum washer'. And I've dug holes and piled rocks just to give myself a little piece of western comfort; to sit and shit, this is peace. And I've shat some nasty toilets. I remember a bus station somewhere in Lithuania near the Latvian border. A place you go to only to catch a bus to Riga and see a hill of crosses, a monument to the people killed by the Russians (a curious thing I've noticed is that anywhere where Russians have been there are monuments to all those they killed). Jazz might remember this place. Not sure. Anyhow, I remember it simply because I had to piss like you wouldn't believe and had no idea how to say toilet in Lithuanian. But as you do, these things get communicated through gesticulations (usually, for men at least, this merely involves the pantomime of pissing; a hand waved about in front of the crotch like one is watering the lawn with a hose- why is that pissing? Do you wave it about or grab it like a hose? Me? I just let it go and hang free as a bird. But standing there, hands on your hips, looking relaxed staring at the ceiling does not convey the need to piss. And so the hose we shake). And my answer was simply 'round the corner'. You couldn't miss this toilet for the world. Before I'd even rounded the corner I could smell it. It smelled like an army had pissed there for years on end. Hell, even the stone urinals had been etched away by the steady stream of urine. But I digress. Back to the matter at hand. The toilet.

As I've said, I've shat some nasty 'toilet's but damn if I haven't encountered some of the foulest holes in Mongolia. I mean, you can piss anywhere, really, you can. Hell, in the Gobi you can just up and shit wherever too. Not much cover, mind you. Just the open expanse of the Gobi. But there's something slightly freeing, and unnerving, about shitting literally in the great WIDE open. But we do it (or, if you're like me, you wait for a town or pile some rocks). But sometimes there's an outhouse of sorts and propriety seems to deem that we use it. I've never wanted a proper squatter so much in my life as whenever I encountered one of these things. They consist of a pit and two precariously placed boards where the feet are- one hopes- firmly planted. And it is over this fetid pit that you shit. Or try.

And that's my story. That's it. Just shit. Move on...

Pissing in the Wind.

If you've ever followed my travels or somehow got a hold of one of my e-mails that get- strangely- passed around, you might have noticed the complete lack of a coherent thread here. Just vignettes; little stories and glimpses of something but nothing whole. The sad thing is that I have nothing to say about Mongolia. I only have these little things, minor stories (with a few more to come). Nothing else. If I were to sum up my time in Mongolia it would be 'pissing in the wind'. There's a lot of waiting. There's a lot of sitting in jeeps bouncing around for hours only to arrive somewhere and wonder 'is this it?' Mongolia is a big place and a beautiful place too. But every time I go somewhere, every time I arrive I simply think 'this is all like something else, somewhere else.' Many people will disagree with me on this- and we all know I don't rightly care if one does- but if you ask me what I think of Mongolia I'd simply say it's a bigger version of Montana. I'm not kidding. Aside from the sand dune (and it is just one long dune) it's just a bigger Montana. If I took a photo and it didn't have a ger in it, I could easily say I was hiking in Montana and no one would be the wiser. Hell, even the sand dune reminded me of other places. Mind you it was impressive. But so was the Sahara. And so was Sand Dune National Monument in Colorado, the first sand dunes I ever saw. It depresses me but I'm underwhelmed by this place that I have for years longed to travel to. When I sat and stared across the steppe, finally green from some rain, all I could think of was the first time I stared across the prairie in South Dakota. God was I amazed. And I still am. But here? Here I just feel empty. I wonder why I'm here.

There is no history here. That is not to say there is no past. Hell, if you took away the satellite dish and motorcycle, the nomads live pretty much as they did when Genghis Kahn lived. A living past! And the great Genghis lives on in every Mongolian's memory as they still quite revere him (I guess it's easier to long for the good ol empire when that empire ended several centuries ago). But he left no monuments, not even a grave, just a story about a mountain where he grazed his horses. I've seen it. Looks like a mountain. What was left of Mongolian history the Russians destroyed- even the language, the written form, anyway. So there's nothing here but nature. And that's nothing to dismiss. I mean the Gobi is immense and the mountains are quite wonderful. But is that why I am here? The other thing is probably personal (not that this hasn't been). I hate tours. I hate being led around and I hate people having to guide me or someone cooking my food and bringing my gear along. I can't stand it. I don't like schedules, or having places to be. It's against my creed, if you will. It's not why or how I travel. But if you try and get around Mongolia without a jeep and guide then you may never get anywhere! Even if you could, say, get a bus (usually a minivan crammed with 20 people) to Dalanzagad, the closest city to the sand dunes, how would you get to the dunes? Then how would you get around? The simple fact is that it is virtually necessary to hire a tour company. But even though you make your own itinerary it's still a tour. And in my case I didn't even make the itinerary. I and Miguel hitched onto someone else's trip as we couldn't afford to do our own solo.

So I don't leave you with a completely depressed reading of my time here let me at least tell you why I travel how I do and when I finally came to that point in Mongolia where I finally felt I was somewhere else.

As I said, travel in Mongolia is difficult. I needed to get to Kazakhstan and I also wanted to see western Mongolia. I'm not really sure why but I did. My options where 2 to 3 days crammed into a soviet/Russian bus filled to the brim with people. Or a flight. So I caught a flight. And let me tell you that my little flight to Khovd, thankfully on a nice new Saab aircraft- all of 2 hours- was far more pleasant than any flight I've had in the US. We got muffins, damn you! Muffins! Good ones too. Bran muffins (which after my stint in the Gobi, erm, seemed rather necessary). And fresh jam, coffee, and a drink. Fuck those damn peanuts you get in the US. But I digress. So I landed in Khovd with no real plan. I had no idea what I'd do or where I'd go. I just knew that in ten days or so I'd need to be in Olgii another 200 kilometers away to catch a flight to Kazakhstan (yeah, it's kind of that complicated). When I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac I felt a sensation I'd not felt in Mongolia before. Mosquitoes. Fuck loads of them. Great. I'd arrived in the mosquito capital of Mongolia. So I had my first task: find some repellent. Sure, I had that jungle stuff (90% DEET. The kind of shit that eats through synthetic fabrics. No shit). But that's a bit overkill for these annoying creatures. Besides, I'd need it when I got farther south in a few months. So I needed some regular Off.

After taking in all the pleasantness of this fine airport in Khovd, and waiting and an interminably long time for my bags- I mean, I could see the plane; it was practically at the door- I had to get to town. But how? Bus. There had to be a bus. And so there was and off I went to find a seat. Sorry, this is a miner bus. It's headed across town and into the countryside and the coal mines, I was told. Ok. Plan B. What was plan B? As I began to contemplate a plan B- simply huffing it into town-, the miners called me over. I could get a lift into the town centre if I wanted. So off we went. But my pockets were empty so I needed a bank. An ATM, really. Fortunately, I knew how to say bank in Mongolian. It's 'Bank'. ATMs aren't exactly a novelty in Mongolia. There were at least four signs for an ATM that I could see one I'd found one across from the square. So one wonders why it was that as I was trying to get some cash out that a sizable crowd formed around me. Ok, I had some problems getting the card in and some fellow showed me his card and how it was done. Thanks. But if you have a card, surely you've used an ATM before, maybe even this one. So why the crowd? Oh well. Cash in hand, off I went in search of repellent. Those damn mosquitoes were beginning to annoy me. And here is where I had one of those lovely moments only travellers get to enjoy. As I walked down the road in search of a shop I noticed four quite nice dirt bikes all kitted out. These things could go to hell and back and looked as if they just might have. Hm... Could it be those kiwis I met at the Kazakh embassy? That was several weeks and several hundred kilometers ago. But sure enough there they were having a beer and cursing the mosquitoes.

We chatted, grabbed some food, swapped road stories- inevitably one or two about shitting on the steppe (and one of them was shitting his brains out- Cipro, bro). Apparently they'd lost one of their fellow riders a few days back. Broken leg and a trip home. But they were still on their long trek to Western Europe (got to hand it to them for coming up with that little adventure!). But this is why I like travelling with no real plans. While we were sitting there up walks a Kazakh fellow, Tilek. He was the local English teacher and was also interested in bikes. After a while he asked me what I was up to in Khovd. No idea. Where was I going to stay. Not sure. Got any recommendations? Yeah, stay with me and my family in a village not far from here. And so this was how I came to spend a week living in a Kazakh village (lots of Kazakhs in W. Mongolia). Man was that an experience! Just getting to the village was a trip in itself. First five of us piled into Tilek's car- what he called 'Stalin's gift' as it was some Russian POS. But we had a stop to make. We had to pick up one of his sisters and her kids. They lived out in some gers along the river. But which ger? There were quite a few and not along a nice country road.

After bumping along for a bit and after some shouting and phone calls we found the ger. And this is when I really found out about Mongolian (ok, Kazakh) hospitality. This was just a quick visit. Just a stop to get a sister and some kids (how we'd all fit is another story). But every visit requires tea- salty milk tea- and a bit of a snack. But his sister's husband had killed off a sheep so our snack was really a pile of mutton and noodles heaped onto a large plate for all 15 or so of us to eat from. God if my grandmother could have seen me eating like that she'd have likely smacked me for such table manners! Just hands- or two fingers in my case as I hate getting greasy fingers. Fortunately, this little stop did not necessitate a shot of vodka. That would come later when we arrived at Tilek's village, just 30 mins away. We had to stop in to see a friend. Shit. More tea. And this visit also came with another sheep carcass. I think it was a sheep. The head was there but it had horns so maybe it was a goat? Dunno. But I was a guest and a traveller no less so this called for a toast of vodka. Oh that vile shit. But I'm not one to offend and so down the hatch! By now I'd learned how to politely turn down the obligatory second, third, and often fourth and fifth shots. But what a meal! Two in an hour. We said our goodbyes and then headed over to Tilek's parent's place. Me and his brother, fresh from studying in the US, were going to crash out there. As we came in his mother, who had been with us the whole time, asked what I'd like to eat. Eat? Seriously? I had half a sheep/goat in me! No, I'm quite alright. She looked queerly at me then laughed. Poor American. Needs to fatten up.

And so I spent a week here in this village, first with Tilek's parents then with Tilek's family and his little army of kids, as he called them. We didn't do much. We just hung out. I tried some bouldering as there were some half decent rocks nearby but I scared the wits out of them as they thought for sure I'd die! And we wandered around town. And every time we walked we inevitably met someone and that meant tea- and not to infrequently, some sheep. After a while I simply took to carrying around some black tea with me. I got to be known a bit so no one was offended. But I just couldn't take that salty tea anymore- even with the sugar. It was a good time. All the weight I lost in the Gobi I'm certain I gained back in this little village! I even ate some horse. Don't hate me. I didn't know what it was until afterwards. Wasn't bad, really. Kind of salty. And leathery. Actually, I don't think I need to eat horse again. I can cross that one off my list (not that it was ever on there but, hey, it's crossed off the list anyhow).

So I haven't done much here. I've wandered around a bit. I've seen a few mountains, took a bath in a sulfur spring, and walked up a sand dune. Not much to write about, really. But I make the most of it. I have some stories yet to tell and I certainly don't regret a thing. Soon I leave for Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan is out as they seem to be having a revolution at the moment, but you never know... For now, I'm pissing in the wind in Bayan Olgii.

WARNING: Unless your politics run far to the left and you enjoy a good rant, then I'd stop reading this blog farther down than here!

Fucking Wall Street Will only Fuck Yourself in the end

Whoa. Long time, no post. But, a dissertation will do that to you. Which reminds me, I may need to alter the name of this blog soon. It does have a nice ring to it, though...

Anyways, the topic of the day! The 700 BILLION proposed 'bail out' of Wall Street. It's a biggy. I'll get it right out of the way: I'm for it, with caveats, of course. I have not seen the bill before the House and so I'm not sure if I will still support it if and when it passes. But my concerns appear to be addressed it's just the details that I still need.

I know a lot of people out there (polls are showing most of us) are opposed to the bill. There is a general sense that Wall Street fucked up so let them die off. Lord knows there is nothing better in my mind than knowing that the assholes raking in the dough over the past decade with shady deals are going to fall on their asses. But here's the thing: no matter how much you hate it, this bill has to pass. Like it or not, as things stand now we don't have much of a choice (I'll explain it in a minute). Unless we want to completely rebuild the entire global economy to make it fairer and better- and likely ruin a lot of lives in the process- then just hold your nose and support this fucker. If the capitalists don't get what they want by way of less regulation and lower taxes they will threaten to trash an economy. Then when we give them deregulation and they fuck up, we have to clean up the mess. You're fucked either way so get over it.

Now why support it? People like to cite parallels to the Great Depression and there are some good parallels but not many. The Great Depression probably could have been averted with government intervention but that's about the only similarity here. The problems facing the economy now are a serious lack of fluidity in the credit markets, a fear of trading what capital (cash) people do have, a lack of trust (related to previous point), and a lot of bad debt out there. The Great Depression was fuelled by a run on banks and spurred the creation of the FDIC. Washington Mutual is the only bank to have likely failed in similar ways. So this isn't a good comparison. A better comparison is to Japan and Sweden in the 1990s. The former fucked up, the latter did not.

Banks with assloads of bad debt face several problems. One, they can't meet the capital to debt ratios required either by the government or to maintain a decent credit rating to secure more, well, credit. Some people have suggested simply putting more liquidity out there (i.e. throw more cash out into the system and therefore fix the liquidity problem). This won't work if banks are still stuck with shite debt because all it does is balance the debt to capital ratio. It doesn't mean more cash is available, though getting credit might be easier. Besides, we've been doing that piecemeal and it hasn't worked either. Another proposition posed generally by my friends in the Republican party is to lower the capital gains tax and make it easier for investers to pony up the cash. That is great in theory but unfortunately the 'theory' in question is the same body of freemarket BS that created this mess. There is also the problem with trust.

Face it, the market is a social construct that functions in part on math and mainly on perception. The world of debt swaps, derivatives, and all the other wonderful shit that caused this mess is so complex that calculating a value on these deals is difficult (something I need the Treasury to explain if they intend to buy these debts). So until a value can be placed on these debts no one can or will buy them. Moreover, investors will buy just about anything if they feel secure. The general perception is not one of security (this also explains the contagion effect of the collapsed markets during the SE Financial crisis- all emerging markets were deemed risky because on of them had collapsed. It's all perception). Similarly, the lack of trust between institutions over the credit worthiness of each other makes extending what capital is out there difficult. Loosening the tax reins doesn't fix that.

Face it. The only option is to go in and buy up the bad debt. That in itself is a bail out and would, if left alone, equal capitalist welfare. I would never support that. But the government's rescue of AIG with the requirement of a massive equity (ownership) stake I can support. The 700 billion bail out has a similar provision that will allow the treasury to get equity in certain banks where the government buys off the bank's debt. How much equity, under what conditions, and whether it's compulsory or at the whim of Wall Street's greatest friend, Secretary Paulson, are the details that determine my full throated support.

Why does the equity matter to me? (I like the trimming of the 'golden parachutes' but I don't care that much). Equity counts for several reasons. One, we just nationalised AIG. That baby is ours now. I like that. I want NATIONALISATION to become part of our lexicon and fuck the Republicans and their socialist fears. Two, an equity stake means bleeding the existing investors (another reason why getting the price right on buying the debt is important. It must be below market value, whatever the fuck that is). It also means that if the banks that we help out turn around and start making a profit the US government will get its money back. Higher interest loans would be another method but I think the equity is a better way to go because we can sell off the equity at the price we want. Plus, as we will likely flip the debt we buy on to those willing to buy it, and since this will likely be lower than what we paid, some other provision is necessary to gain a profit. Three, there is precedent for this. Sweden faced a major credit problem with almost all of its banks in the early 1990s. And to rescue them they hit the investors hard (a pound of flesh for an ounce of gold is how one commentator put it). Moreover, they virtually nationalised several banks. The industry eventually stabilised, the state started to sell off what they owned and they made a profit. Sweden's bail out was around 3% of GDP, the US bail out is closer to 5% (in adjusted terms for comparison) so the comparison is fair.

Right now those opposing it, mainly Republicans but also some Democrats, are largely opposed on ideological grounds. As one California Republican put it, the bail out violates his free market principles. Well here's why I find that to be a stupid, stupid reason. IT'S THOSE FUCKING FREE MARKET PRINCIPLES THAT CAUSED THIS MESS, YOU JACK ASSES! Unfettered markets, deregulation, less oversight, blah, blah, blah. Milton Friedman's utopia of a pure market has been the motivating force behind our economic policy since- and we do fail to mention this- at least Clinton. I say Clinton because even though Reagan was a free market kind of guy, Clinton really oversaw the bills that led to this mess, under a Republican Congress, mind you (repeal of the Glass-Steagal act is top of the list- look it up, I don't have time to explain everything). So people pissing and moaning about violating their principles really just need new principles because the current ones are wrong.

So besides there being a real necessity to go in an fix this mess with a lot of government money, we also have the chance to fully discredit the free market idea. It has never worked and never will. Markets are great up to a point. But they function better with oversight and regulation. The day we start admitting that is the day we start changing this system. That is why I support this 700 billion bail out. Mind you, if I read the bill that passes and it doesn't contain what I like then I reserve the right to change my mind.

Well, that's it folks. And remember, Lieberman is a douchebag! And he's even douchier than ever these days!

Wordle?

I found an interesting website that takes a look at all the words on a page (or in this case a blog) and turns them into a word cloud. The bigger the word the more often it appears. The Guardian has a piece on McCain's blog as word cloud art (He's obsessesed with Obama as it's the biggest fucking word). Also, there is a website where you can 'wordle' every presidential speech since the 18th century (http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags/).

Here's my wordle:

China and the Games

So it seems that China is starting to get a bit worried about all the clamour surrounding the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing and China's woeful human rights problems. The latest blow was rendered by Steven Spielberg's decision to resign his position as artistic director, or some other title of grand importance. That seemed a long time coming, if you ask me. In an op-ed piece last year Spielberg was likened to Leni Riefenstahl for his part in the games and his tacit acceptance of China's foot dragging on the Darfur issue. That's a pretty harsh critique to level on Jewish fellow like Spielberg (Riefenstahl, for those who might be confused, was Hitler's choice to film and artistically coordinate the Olympic games in Berlin in 1936). But forget Spielberg for the moment. The bigger issue is China, the Olympics, and what Beijing is calling the politicisation of the games.

The UK recently decided that it would force all its athletes to sign a pledge to not make public statments against the Chinese government during the game. Before you get too outraged, part of the Olympic rules state that athletes and governments must refrain from such activities as it detracts from the spirit and purpose of the games. Basically, if we held the games in Soudan no one should be bitching about the genocide going on the countryside. Seems a tad ridiculous, right? China thus feels that it is fair in crying foul over the international attention it is getting in the run up to the games (attention that is likely only to increase as the games get closer). But one might ask is it fair? My answer, which should come as no surprise, is yes. Fuck you China (not the people, the government).

There are several good reasons why the world ought to take this opportunity to lay down some serious fucking criticisms on China. First off, the connection with Darfur might seem a bit tenuous so let me explain China's role. The long and short of it is that in the search for resources China has been quite active in Africa over the last few years. Short of cash, many African governments welcome Chinese investments and love China's policy of not giving a shit about what you do in your country (slaughter some people to make way for oil wells? No problem. Unleash horse riding militiamen to rape and pillage? No biggy). China is particularly well invested in Soudan's growing oil sector. China is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which carries with it the ability to be a dick and completely veto any statement or policy coming from that body should it not like it. Funny that China has done just that whenever the Security Council has tried to discuss Darfur. When the pressure (in part a result of the publicity surrounding Spielberg's threat to resign last year) got too big for China it put pressure on Khartoum to allow a UN mission to Darfur. And lo and behold Soudan agrees to a UN peacekeeping mission (we'll ignore the problems with that for now). So while China is not responsible- directly- for the crisis in Darfur it is responsible for preventing action and for allowing Soudan to avoid some of the sanctions being imposed. So that's point one against China.

What else is there against the Chinese Govt.? Well, let's see... Oh, recently the government decided to round up any potential human rights campaigners and throw them in jail or exile them to the countryside. Hmm... I wonder why they did that? Then there's this whole environmental mess. Beijing's air quality is so abhorrent that many countries are forgoing China's training facilities and opting to prep for the games in neighbouring Japan and then fly in for the day when a given athlete's event is up.

But the biggest point against China is this: China has no right to cry foul on the politicisation of the games when it is hoping to score political points by holding the games in the first place. The Beijing games are meant to be China's bold statement about its power and ascendency. They're meant to be a reflection of, as one commentator put it, the return of an ancient civilization to international prominence. In short, China is using the games for political ends and has, thus, already politicised the event. Any criticisms levelled against it, then, are perfectly fair if you ask me.

And before anyone levels the charge that the Olympic rules- as already mentioned- forbid governments and athletes from criticising and politicising the Olympics as a violation of the spirit of the game, know this: I don't give a shit. It's a dumb rule. The US refused to partake in the Moscow games as a- rather tepid- protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. So it's not the first time this shit has happened. But China deserves all this criticism. Despite its growth and the great upward movement out of poverty for many Chinese, the government still rules with an iron fist. It has a disgusting human rights record domestically and it doesn't give a shit about human rights globally- indeed it often uses its position to prevent others from criticising human rights abuses. China deserves every bit of criticism laid against it and I hope it comes in heaps. I hope these games go down as a great embarrassment for China. That is unless it cleans up its act. Let's be fair. We criticise hoping that China will change. So will it respond or will it continue to bitch and moan and stifle protests? We'll see...

So thems my thoughts. But I am wondering what the great douche thinks of it all. Lieberman, oh great douche bag, what do you think? Wait, I don't give a shit....