Robba Fountain, Ljubljana

ljubljana, slovenia. (that's loob-lee-ana) i'd like to say it's full of culture. music, festivals, artwork, sculptures. we tried to get a room in a converted-prison, now hostel which looked like the coolest place on earth. bright colours, a nice big outdoor/indoor cafe, bars on the windows from the old cells...anyways it was full and we got sent to the university dorms about a 15 minute walk away, which is kind of cool and reminds me of being a student.


other than the old town, a small castle, a fountain and a couple of bridges, there isnćt much else to see here unless you're really interested in gothic and baroque architecture. it's a nice place...you could spend a couple of days just doing nothing...




walked around the city yesterday and up to an old castle on a hill where they had a 3D video presentation on the city. then off for dinner at this funky mexican restaurant...felt like i was in paris, the table was inside at street level, and out the window was the old town, amid a thunderstorm, cobbled streets, shutters on the window and fancy boutiques as far as the eye can see.


afterwards, it was off to a skeleton bar. a cool dungeon-like place underground filled with skeletons of gargoyles and witches, shrunken heads, the bathroom was hidden behind a bookshelf with an old bone as the handle. there was a dead body under the floor, under-glass, that turned in his grave when you walked on it and a couple of skeletons in a crypt that "got busy" every hour or so.



Lake Bled, Slovenia

so now, we're off to lake bled. it's described as a beautiful emerald-green lake in the julian alps of slovenia. there's a small island with an old church in the center and the lake is surrounded by small beaches and a little tourist town with restaurants and cafes.

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Split, Croatia

croatia. gorgeous. i arrived from mostar a small old town in hercegovina to split, a beautiful medieval tourist town on the coast of croatia. i spent a day there wandering the cobbled alleyways of the old town and hopped on a boat to the island of hvar.




hvar recieves so much days of sun yearly that if it rains when you stay there, you're hotel is half price and if it snows, it's free. i shared a room with three finnish firls i had met in sarajevo. we had a beautiful view of the bay, the turquoise waters, the old city. spent most of the days lazing on the beaches and the nights partying. we went to a bar were tom cruise was spotted not too long ago, and bill gates (i don't know what that means?)




after two nights on hvar, i headed south to korcula island. it's where i am now. olive tree orchards, vineyards, lemon and orange trees dotting sun kissed moutains...blue water, old european architecture...and hot like a mofo everyday. i've been lying around, not doing much for so long now, i'm black and tanned...i'll head to another craotian island tomorrow and then off to zagreb.

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sarajevo, bosnia. never have i had a more poignant and surrealistic experience in my life than walking the streets of this once war-torn city. an astonishing ride through the countryside from belgrade brought me through green mountains to this valley. i took a taxi from a sarajevo suburb into the city, to bascarsija, the turkish quarter and found a hostel. the city is beautiful.


in the center of the turkish quarter, i found a mosque, a catholic church, a synagogue and an orthodox church. the only place on earth where this is found, four religions peacefully coexisiting so close together...pigeons gather around the central fountain, small shops and cafes for bosnian coffee...black and unfiltered, poured over suger cubes and served with turkish delght, people walk hand-in-hand over the cobbles, sidestepping the 'sarajevo roses', small craters where shells once exploded. many buildings and homes are pockmarked from bullets and explosions, some have been completely rebuilt or repaired and others stand as burnt out, hollow skeletons, shadows of their former grandeur. many citizens have chosen not to repair the scars of the war on their homes, reminders of the recent war. "we surivive!"



A Sarajevo Rose


Bullet Holes


A Collapsed Building


Sarajevo 1992-1995

i'm constantly awestruck at the strength of the bosnian people, it's difficult to imagine what it was like here only 10 years ago. the european union has pumped so much money into this country that it's now one of the fastest changing cities in europe.




i went on a tour of the 'sarajevo tunnel' this morning. between 1992 and 1995, serbian troops surrounded the city and were holding it in a medieval style siege. there intention had been to cut off power and communication, and prevent food from being delivered to the citizens. a form of ethnic cleansing, if enough bosnians died, there would be no opposition to the serbs moving in and claiming the land as their own. the airport was a dangerous place. the serbian troops and snipers along the road to the airport or 'sniper alley' would shoot anything that moved, men, women, even children. the bosnians built an 800m tunnel under the airport in order to bring weapons and food to the bosnian soldiers and citizens in sarajevo. the tunnel begins in the basement of a small bullet riddled house just outside the airport...it is now a museum, filled with photos and other artifacts of the war.


11,000 bosnians died here. 1600 of them children.


our tour guide told us a joke:
there was a man swinging back and forth on a swing.
another man approached him and said "why are you doing that? swings are for children...don't act like that."
--his response..."i'm fucking with the snipers."


it's an example of 'bosnian-sarcasm'. something that helped the 300,000 people here continue on with something that resembled a life during the war. cafes were open, bars and nightclubs were said to have 'never been more busy' and the schools and universities continued amidst constant shelling...they created special recipes in a book called 'the survival guide'. how to make decent meals with humanitarian food aid, mayonnaise with no eggs, stuffed grape leaves with no meat, etc. they collected spent shells and bullets and traded collections, stripped cars for parts, cut trees in the parks to burn for heating and cooking...there was a lot to be done. makeup was said to be one of the biggest sellers in the black market (the women still made themselves up), along with doctor's notes for days off work and litres of petrol...traded from the soldiers for porno videos...


no more tanks, no more soldiers...


you should know what happened here...


i have little else to say. i have never experienced anything like the feeling i get here, the city now is running at full steam. it feels alive. people are out...the restaurants are wonderful, children play in the parks...people hang out in cafes and go to the theatre...i love it...this is sarajevo.

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one of my favourite bloggers just quit. let's just say a word here...i had been reading her blog pretty much daily since i found it about a year ago in korea. it was the only vancouver blog that i found that i liked...she posted pics of vancouver, snow and leaves down 12th avenue (my old hood, she lives there now) and crazy stories about her school (which i also kind of worked for, well i guess they worked for me) and just vancouver stuff. ...she also reminded me of a good friend i once had, who unfortunately, i no longer talk to...it's sad. reen has left the building...


we will miss you...

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belgrade, serbia. wow! i'm in shock....this is one of the nicest cities i've been to yet and i only scheduled two days for it...i bought my bus ticket to sarajevo before i realized how great it is here. everywhere i turn there's a park or fountain or plaza, streets lined up and down with cafes and beautiful old churches, sculptures and statues and grand old architecture...i could live here...really...


there's this military museum in the fortress that contains pieces of a downed US stealth fighter and the pilot's uniform from 1999 as well as pieces of bombs the US used that were contrary to international war standards...graphite strand bombs that disrupt power, radioactive warhead tips etc...


my trip from sighisoara to belgrade was a living nightmare though. i got up kind of late in brasov (and so did my travelling partners nathan and jessica) so we missed our train. we ended up hiring a speed-demon cab driver and he took us on a wild and crazy trip to sighisoara, birthplace of vlad tepes. it was a nice old town, nathan and jessica (both from tennessee) planned to stay the night there and then head to bucharest the next morning. i came up with what i thought was a good plan, but now seems totally ridiculous. it was to just keep heading westwards towards the serbian border and then catch a train from wherever i end up...why should i backtrack all the way to bucharest just to catch a direct train? because kiran, that would've been so much easier...


i headed as far west as i could to a town called 'arad' and then had a ticket to catch a connection to 'timisoara' where trains ply daily to belgrade...it was all worked out...


i got to 'arad' and was told that the train that i had a ticket to connect on to didn't exist...well at least not until the next morning at 4:45 am. at this point it was 11pm, the night before, and the train station was filled with gypsies and strange old men who hang out and drink at the train station bar all night...


i have to say, though, that the info lady there was super-nice and helpful and instead arranged a decently priced taxi for me to get to timisoara and catch the train to belgrade earlier...


i eventually got to timisoara around 2am and then had to sit around until 6:34am for the train to belgrade...i had very little sleep...there were gypsies crawling all over the station just waiting to steal my stuff which i had to literally chain to my body and sleep on top of...


the next morning i had a cup of nasty coffee while i was waiting. two men in police uniforms approached me while i was talking to this crazy man who gave me his collection of 7 used romanian phone cards and 1 stick of incense...(thank you sir), they asked me for my documents...good thing i'd read up in my lp on romanian scams...apparently they aren't police or they are and they're corrupt, they take your passport and refuse to return it to you until you pay a huge 'fine'. there was a guy at my hostel in bucharest who fell for it three times and lost like $500. instead i asked them for their id's...they gave me a dirty look and waked away, the jig was up...kiran 1:fake romanian police 0.


not to say that all romanian police are fake or corrupt, because i met some very nice people and police officers who were more than willing to help me and show me the way and were just all round nice people...but there are sharks in the water.


it was rough...i didn't get much sleep and by the time i did get to belgrade it had been at least 26 hours of wakefulness...that was followed by a 4km hike in the hot sun to my hotel here...it's a floating boat hotel called the 'yachting club' and is very cool, but far from the city center...


btw, i still haven't slept...it's been 37 hours now...i just went and saw 'batman begins' and enjoyed it...that was how the oter batman films should have gone...darker, blacker, stranger...i still think the costume looked a little cheesy, but the new batmobile rocked! and christian bale is just cool period...katie holmes was poo


oh yeah...vampires and werewolves are real!! i'll be safely away from transylvania in bosnia by the time the next full moon rolls around on the 22nd...

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transylvania...yes. took a trip to three castles in this area. the first, rasnov fort, was a 13th century fort that had some cool medieval drawings of people being sawed in half...


from there it was off to dracula's castle, in bran. the original dracula, vlad tepes probably never set foor here, but it's named after him either way. it was gorgeous, set high on a hill in a small forest overlooking the town of bran. it was filled with winding passageways and rooms decorated with intricate carvings...and flowers...yes, i guess dracula liked flowers...oh yeah and there were lots of windows too, so maybe sunlight didn't kill him and there was no crypt or coffin...


at the bottom of the hill there were vendors selling all kinds of vampire stuff, statues, t-shirts, masks and fangs...i bought a mug...i will drink coffee from it and remember bran castle...yes, i will...



Peles Castle, Sinai, Romania

then we went to sinai to see eastern europes most magnificent castle, peles. it was goregeous! the home of romania's first king, king carol in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. over 160 rooms, many of which were completelely covered in delicate wood carvings, gigantic mirrors, silks, statues, oil paintings, murals, wood inlays...there was ebony, black and white marble, a retractable stain glass roof...a teak furniture set that took three generations of a family in india to carve and was a gift from a maharaja; there were chinese incense urns, carpets, water pipes and textiles from turkey, a 5 metre high flawless crystal mirror, italian glasswork and chandeliers from venice and florence...it goes on and on...amazing!



Vlad Tepes, Vampire

i head to the birthplace of dracula, vlad tepes, tomorrow in sighisoara in the carpathian mountains, were werewolves still roam. they lock the doors of our hostel and you're not allowed to climb the hill here in brasov city at night because of the werewolves. there's a mandatory 6pm curfew on the night of a full moon and fortunately there won't be one for a few more days, at least...



Werewolf, Carpathian Mountains, Romania

i haven't seen a werewolf or vampire yet myself...that i know of, the older ones roam in the mountains and live off deer and bear...

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bucharest, romania. it's no coincidence that romanian sounds and reads like a mix between french, spanish and italian. they all came from the romans...i think that must've been the origin of the word romantic too. although romania has it's share of vampires and werewolves, haunted castles...transylvania...it has a certain "romanticism" too...by day the cafes of the old town, the grand parks and old neoclassical buildings...and at night it's in the lights of the plazas as they mingle with the stained glass windows of ancient churches and reflect off the water in the fountains found all over the city...



The Palatul Parlamentului, Bucharest, Romania

i wandered the city today. saw the second largest building in the world, the Palatul Parlamentului, home to romania's parliament (the largest building is US's Pentagon). over 20,000 workers toiled under the orders of 700 architects for five years to build the thing. each side is at least a kilometre long, and 20 stories high. other than that there were a few nice churches and other buildings. i saw the 'old princely court' of vlad 'the impaler' tepes, the first vampire, mostly ruined now. there was a small wax sculpture exhibit from belgrade on exposition and it included some very cool figures of the minotaur of crete, a harpy and a sphinx...




tomorrow, i head north to brasov to see some of the old medieval castles...

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after seeing all of plovdiv yesterday afternoon, i decided to go watch a movie. i haven't been in a theatre since "Meet The Fockers" in Bangkok 6 months ago...


so, i went to see "Sin City"...it's weird in Bulgaria, there are no previews...they just start the movie...there wasn't even a..."our feature presentation" thingy...it just started playing...


and it was great. i really enjoyed it. some of the acting seemed kind of weak. i'm pretty sure it was done on purpose to make it more like the dialogue in a graphic novel, sharp and to the point. on the graphic novel front, by the way, it was very well done, the selectively coloured objects: eyes, dresses, cars...the rain, the way the blood was bright white on black...and elijah wood's character, awesome...


he fricken cuts off his arms and legs...

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MORE PICTURES! YAY!


I've finally caught up with my photos...here is the rest of India, Dubai and Turkey for your viewing pleasure...comments are welcome! You'll have to wait another month or so for Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia...as they haven't been developed...in fact, I haven't even been to some of those palces yet! Shya!


India - Northwest - Delhi, Chandigarh, Amritsar


India - North Central - Varanasi, Khajuraho, Agra


Turkey - Istanbul, Gallipoli, Troy


Turkey - Ephesus, Pammukale, Cappadocia


Turkey - Mediterranean Coast - Olympos, Kas, Patara, Fethiye

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last night, i was rained in again. fortunately my room had a tv. i watched some much music...they played jackass which was awesome to see again...followed by this show called 'dirty sanchez'. i had heard of it before...but my god, this stuff was nasty...thumbtacks through big toenails, fingers in a vice, nail through the flap of skin between the thumb and forefinger, brick on the head...they even u-locked a guys neck while he was passed out and then someone else swallowed the key. he had to wait about for it to pass through his system...the other guy had to walk around with a u-lock dangling around his neck for a week...it was funny...and rough, not for everyone.


then i saw some show talking about how great it is to be puff daddy...sean combs, and i've seen shows on his life before...and he's someone that i really enjoy watching, he knows how to spend money...he went from an intern to ceo of a major record label in less than ten years and has a personal net worth of like half a billion dollars.




-he's spent up to $20,000 a minute while partying in new york
-he owns two houses in la and a $16 million dollar ny park acenue townhouse that he uses as a closet
-he pays his personal trainer $500,000 a year
-for his 33rd birthday he flew his friends on a private jet to a private yacht for a week, bought them all diamond pinky rings and white versace suits to wear and forced them to go on a 24 hour a day, 5 days straight party schedule....price tag $1 million US-his clothing line, 'sean john', is said to be worth almost half a billion dollars
-he owns more cars than one person can drive, including a $250,000 ferrari, two $350,000 bentleys and a $370,000 rolls royce limited edition...
-he's the 12th richest person under 40 in the world

ridiculous!

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i tap this out dripping wet from sofia, bulgaria. the rain started halfway through macedonia on the night bus to bulgaria. it hasn't stopped since. i spent my first day here at the gorgeous rila monastery in the rila mountains, two hours south of here and today doing the lp walking tour in the rain, without an umbrella (because i hate them!) and i guess that's why i'm cold and wet now...



Alexander Nevsky Church, Sofia, Bulgaria

bulgaria has been a bit of a troublespot. all the signs are in cyrillic and fricken hard to decipher! my lp translation guide is utterly useless, as bulgarian cyrillic differs from both russian and macedonian and it's all mixed up. cyrillic is a blend of roman and greek characters, along with a bunch of weird ones i've never even seen before. a "P" represents "r," an "H" represents "n," a backwards "N" represents "i" and so on...i blame it all on communism! bulgaria was the only country of the former soviet union that actually voted the communists back into power and it shows...decaying infrastructure, poverty and massive concrete buildings and plazas everywhere! my taxi driver scammed me by charging me 6 times the meter rate somehow and driving around in circles...i was exhausted at 5am when i arrived here and didn't put up a fight, i was happy to just get to a hotel.


don't get me wrong, the churches, mosques and synagogues are gorgeous, the food and drinks are cheap and the girls are gorgeous. i've met some really nice people here and am enjoying it...just wish the rain would stop!


i was invited to dinner with the family of the owner of my hotel last night. we had bbq steaks, chicken, mashed potatoes and greek salad with fat black kalamata olives (and for the first time in my life, i enjoyed olives!) it was cool, the dad speaks a little french and we talked and shared some beers, along with another guest at the hotel, roy, from holland, who has invited me to sleep on his couch when i get there...


the prostitutes here, of which there are several, are the most aggressive i've ever encountered in my life. they hang around on the corners at night, and most look young, maybe 18-20 years old. if you're walking they jump out in front and block your way, grabbing and offering the goods..."why? why you no like? why you no want?" this goes on for blocks...i just laugh because there's not much else you can say...


tomorrow i head south to the old town of plovdiv...

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tirana, the capital of albania was the most metropolitan city i've seen in a long, long time, with parks and tree lined boulevards, museums and cafes out the wazoo. i stayed near downtown in the kalaya hotel. it was a friday night and i headed out for a few drinks in 'the block', an area that used to be off-limits to most and contained the houses of those loyal to albania's former communist government which was toppled in early 1991 during fierce rioting. i also saw the main square, called skenderberg square, named after albania's national hero and just off to the side, in now brightly couloured buildings painted orange and red, was the former head of the much feared 'communist secret police'. today it houses some other agency headquarters(but is still heavily guarded by soldiers).


i got back to my dorm room, opened the door and was greeted by a warm waft of b.o. and the nasty black toenailed peeling feet of some albanian dude. he spoke nay a word of english, but immediately offered me one of the cigarettes he had been using to smoke up the room. he was in his tightie-whities and a wifebeater and watching some albanian television show...damnit, it was 1am! i had to be up in 6 hours!


i left him to his vices and fell asleep on way too big and lumpy pillow and awoke a few hours later to the tv still blaring, a crooked neck and everyone fast asleep, i mean someone else had joined the crew...an older albanian man, who was just as smelly in bed number 3...great! i turned off the tv and tried to get as much sleep as i could.


in the morning, i was up and at'em! albanian boy decided to follow me to the museum which was closed for another two hours. he suggested we go for coffee, continuosly feeding me cigarettes along the way. we had a nice cup of coffee in pretty much total silence, i didn't speak much albanian and he didn't speak a word of english. then he took me to this park near the university for a couple of beers, bought me a pack of cigarettes and a pack of gum and an iced tea and then walked me all the way back to museum just in time for opening. he showed me all these photos of him in his albanian army uniform and told me he was from the city of shkoder and that he was a 'komando' (which is like the head guy, i guess). turns out he was really nice and just wanted to meet a foreigner...


i caught a minibus a few hours later for the winding 3 hour journey to the border with macedonia at lake ohrid. some woman blew chunks twice on the way and it made me dry-heave...blech! if you can't take the road, then don't ride on it...


the view was amazing, huge forested hills and mountains, clouds just drifting around the tops and a patchwork quilt of farmland in the valleys below. albania is beautiful!




i got to lake ohrid and realized how big it really is. it's the deepest and largest lake in the balkans and also on of the oldest lakes in the world. huge and crystal clear and blue, surrounded by green mountains the jut straight up from the edges!


i crossed over into macedonia by foot and had to wander down a mountain path with my pack...just me and the mountain, from albania to macedonia, and i thought to myself, who the hell does this? sun shining, green trees, lizards scurrying across the trail, eagles screeching, i've never experienced anything like it.


at the bottom, i realized that it was another 35km into ohrid town. i hitch-hiked onto a tour bus full of macedonian university geography students from tetovo on their way back from a four day excursion in albania. a few of them spoke to me in english, and all of them were full of questions. they gave me a free ride all the way in to the old town of ohrid, just on the lake. i'm staying in this cool macedonian dude's house, who had an extra room for cheap. he's got long hair and a beard, is about 28 and a surrealist artist. his old macedonian house opens out onto a cobblestone alleyway across from an ancient monastery...and just around the corner from the shore of lake ohrid...


the only difficulty i've had so far is with reading the signs. everything is in the cyrillic alphabet. up to now (other than south east asia, india and china) i've been able to pretty much read everything...but now, who knows what's going on?


these balkan countries are leaving me in awe! this is where people should be travelling...

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Gjirokaster, Albania

albania. i arrived on a 2 hour ferry from corfu town, greece to the seaside albanian city of saranda. to my surprise it was modern...and not war-torn (i don't really know why i thought that). there was a beautiful seaside promenade lined by palm trees, lots of new construction, pita shops and cafes, old people walking hand-in-hand and people swimming in the ocean or sipping cappucinos...jeese, i thought, this is albania?


and it was. and now i'm in the medieval town of gjirokastra. a huge crumbling castle, the klubi kala argjiro, sits high atop a hill. i hiked up there and climbed through the ramparts to find a deteriorating US army jet from some long-forgotten mission, rusting on top of a wall. there was the broken remains of a giant clockface, near an old tower, piles of rotting garbage and lots of dangerous ledges and drop-offs as i searched the ruins. a few crows and some snakes live there now.


the city itself is really gorgeous though. for some reason every tenth building or so in the old town is crumbling...but the ones that are still standing are beautiful, old european style, cobbled streets and cafes...


tomorrow, i'm off to the capital...tirana.

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