Here are the country-by-country summaries of my experiences followed by a link to further articles or day-by-day journal entries if available. I begin with the most recent country and go backwards in time from there.

While I have not always written about my experiences everyday I have been pretty consistent about taking pictures.

I have taken about 15,000 pictures in this last 32 months and that number is growing. I think about 10% of those are pretty or interesting.

I have taken the liberty of selecting that ten percent and putting them online.

In a sudden mad dash out of Romania I took the train from Arad to Budapest just in time for the mind-boggling Sziget island festival, an amazing romance, and then on to Vienna where I visited Sara Pillhofer, a hiking buddy from South America with whom I took refuge while the floods of August 2002 ravaged Europe.

Hungary was hands down the strangest anomaly of a language I had ever come accross. The people looked like some kind of Baltic Swedes but their words did not have one thing in common with any tounge I had ever heard. That is the 'Hungarian mystery' in a nutshell: it appears familiar on the outside but inside it is deeply unfamiliar. One thing I am sure of is that the Hungarians know how to put on a festival. Check it out:

 

Romania - an odd outlier in a Balkan sea of Slavic cultures and languages. In the time of the Roman Empire this land was stolen from the native Datch peoples (the descendants of whom are to be found in the Maramures area) and given out as rewards to centurions from north Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. At one point Saxons from far off Germany were invited in by local rulers to create more infrastructure. They stayed for 900 years building many of Romania's most lovely midieval cities (which back in the day native Romanians were barred from entering). Some time near 750 years ago a large Gypsy population took up residence in the Danube valley of the south and later Hungarians came to settle the whole central Transylvanian area. Finally the totalitarian Dictator and brutal savage Ceausescu sucked the blood from the country for 25 years until he was killed in a bloody coup in 1989.

The modern Romanians are heirs to all these lineages and the country to me seemed very sad, depressed and desperate but at the same time quiet, warm, and full of color.

 

Bulgaria is the true crossroads of East and West with deep roots in the ancient nomadic cultures of central asia, great sophistication and a flash of wicked humor all on a wonderful piece of green mountainous earth now reabsorbing the crumbled legacies of the Soviet era. I had thought to pass through Bulgaria for five days but ended up staying for nearly a month.

For me there was also an additional heritage aspect as my way followed the trail trodden by my jewel-trading great-grandfather as he travelled the silk road from Iran to Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth century.
 

I never planned to visit Greece but in following the themes of inner spirituality that had led me to Buddhist monasteries, yogic practices and Sufic meetings of the heart I had a final fronteir to approach: the inner path of transformation at the core of Christ's teaching.

Problem is I had studied the Bible closely and found little to no concrete "how to" information in there. That brought me to the doorstep of the Orthodox patriarch Bartholemew in Istambul and ultimately to the living monastic stronghold of Mt. Athos to find what I called "Christian yoga." This is the system of inner evolution learned by Jesus in his wanderings and taught to his desciples all throse years they studied under him before becoming "fishers of men." This is a language and a science lost to most Christians, perhaps preserved in the oral teaching of the Orthodox church: close to the middle east, close to the culture of original Christianity and unbending in its preservation of tradition.

I came to Greece for one purpose only: to see if I could find the yoga of Jesus Christ.

 

From a cultural perspective Iran was the most amazing country I have ever explored. Wide and deep, the joy of family, exquisite food, 7000 years of culture that shows, orgasmic tilework, a whole terrain of stirring classical music and poetry, a strong connection to living history, it is the sacrum of the Eurasian continent where all cultures find thier source and a deep spiritual tradition pours fourth from every direction in poetry and heart-rending song.

Political isolation, victim of mistakes and great victories, the country is cloaked thickly in mystery for a West which has only been shown repeated tape reels of black-clad people buring flags and shouting "death to America." I have striven to show something revealing, human, and rich from a country which in an environment of global war is at risk: open these links and a rare conduit of communication in our world of misinformation.

 

I returned home for both the Christmas of 2000 and 2001 to my family in the US. In both cases I stated that I did not have the money to come back and in both cases my kind, generous parents volunteered to pay. As my one freind Mark Kushemba said "if they want you to return home, then why are they bringing you back here to touch base and get re-energized?"

Some Writing:  

I would recommend Turkey to any traveler no matter what their desire for luxury or roughing it. Istambul is all romance and layers upon layers of history. A kind of reverse Andalucia, the Ottoman Muslim armies captured it from the Christains in about 1500. The language grammar is based on Mongolian, the vocab on Persian and Arabic, the religion is Sunni under a agressively secular government, the cuisine is one of the worlds most varied and subtle, the Agean sea so blue, and the coutnry's outback is all howling wind expanses of emptiness salt desert. My experience in Turkey was mainly a celebration of my first time in 10 months seeing lots of other tourists.

 

Lebannon, land known for its cedars, mighty trees from which Solomon's temple was built, mystic poet Khalil Gibran, the civil war with 30 sides, organizations fighting against Israel such as the Hizbollah, the highlife, shawerma sandwiches.

All these disparate elements - I went there over the mountain road pass from Damascus at dusk not knowing what to expect.

I stayed for five days and in that time was swept up in a whirlwind of Lebanese experiences, the prices there (which are equal to that of Paris) motivating me to move quickly.

I entered Syria on an impulse, wanting to experience my first Arab culture, understand the southern half of the former Ottoman Empire, see important places of shia and sunni Islamic history and try some of Aleppo's famous soap.

The "rogue state" image that hangs around Syria added mystery and excitement but also an additional problem: my parent's peace of mind. Since I decided to go to Syria in a flash I did not have the enormous runway to allay their fears which I was afforded with Pakistan (I had months to warm them up to the idea of going to Pakistan). So I entered and traveled through Syria under the auspices of being in "far far South Turkey."

What I found was a rarely visited county (certainly I was the only American most people had met), with two of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world (Aleppo, Damascus: both ancient already at the time of Jesus), wonderful lamb dishes (they just have this super fat-tailed lamb in Syria), the most beautiful bathhouse I have seen (Aleppo's Yaghlouba Hammam now wonderfully restored to its 1500s magnificence), and many other suprises.

Suprise highlights like the mysterious Palmyra Desert Oasis, Damascus Old City and the visible foundations of Christianity kept my head spinning.

Check it out:

 

Visiting Pakistan brought me back to that pioneering travel feeling I had not had since Bolivia. From day one my time there was witness to the most spectacular acts of hospitality in Asia. I got to stay with powerful local politicians, princes, pagans, farmers, men made of walking history. In the end I had to leave due to the terrible trajedy of NY.


 

Four months in India was far too short to see half of what I was interested in. After one month in and around Varanasi I boldly shot southward and took in the amazing coastline of Karnataka, the untouristy cultural Goa homebase of Margao, Magical Hampi, and the East Coast of Tamil Nadu where I visited one of the only hippie era intentional communities that has prospered.

After that I shot accross to Bombay and out via Rajasthan and Amritsar.

India is both ancient and modern at once, hopefully some of that will come across here:

 

Nepal exceeded my wildest expectations.

In each country I visit I try to find an interesting region where I can hike and reach villages that can only been seen by foot. 80% of Nepal meets that description and is chock full of diverse cultures set against gorgeous Himalayan backdrops.

Two epic month-long journeys marked my time in Nepal: one unplanned and unsigned through "forbidden" areas ruled by Maoists, the other around the most famous track of the Himalayas.

The third journey has just started and crosses the roughest terrain imaginable: my own untrained mind.

 

China - the people are outlandishly different. I had few expectations when I went there. I knew that the famous tourist sites were all too far to the north (where I wasn't visiting). My trip there was just out of curiousity and what I intended to last one month streched out to two and a half months all spent in Yunnan province.

During that time I explored the southernmost region of China's vastness where the term 'Tibeto-Burmese Culture' is a living reality as the highlands marking the eastern tail of the great Himalayan range ease down into the tropical foothills of Xishuabanna. 50 of the 53 ethnic groups in China represented in this province alone, each village was a journey into a different culture and a different experience of how the communist rule has touched their lives and traditions.

Outside of Dali I spent more than one month living in an unheated monastary hidden a hour's hike up into the mountains. With monks ages 9 to 30 I studied Kung Fu in the winter snow & rain - a brutal program of 8 hours daily of physical conditioning. Hopefully I will soon put together an entry describing the typical daily program there.

 

I thought Laos would be a cool way to get from Thailand to China on land. It turned out to be way more than that as in its obscurity it has emerged as the true receptacle of living Indo-Chinese culture today. Land of quiet smiles and soft forgiveness.

It was the first place in the world that I saw villages with little to no trash where most things were made out of bamboo. The people were relaxed and open.

The land also bore great scars of war and abuse from the Vietnam conflict. One old monk opened his robe to me and showed me his scars when I told him I was American.

The nature was unparalelled in its freshness and innocence. The fruit shakes in Luang Prabang were devine.

I lamented having only a two-week visa and I often visit Laos in my mind when I need to recapture my sense of peace.

 

Famous for its sweet and spicey food. Its capitol known around the world for sin and deprivation. Exotic to Americans, the next stop south of Brighton beach parties for the English. I came to Thailand for the charming architecture, the food and the never-conquered people. Oh my - I was a bit dissapionted. In this case I should have done my homework better.

 

This country had the least strength in its indigenous cultures and the fewest impressive ruins etc. Most of the medium-sized cities that span the Andean spine and coast of the countries were hectic charmless anthills of concrete and trash. The restauramt food availble to the budget traveller in Ecuador was the worst of the three Andean countries I visited (and the most monotonous - beef or chicken stew every time). The economy in Ecuador was dystroyed, the government corrupt and unstable (it had just fallen only 6 months before I got there). Despite this I found the land and its people to be fascinating. I spent the longest there of the three Andean countries I visited. I had the closest contact with native cultures there. I paid my first visit to the Amazon in Ecuador and to my suprise was enchanted. My most valuable material posessions were lost in two separate incidents of robbery near Cuenca. I did not climb any high peaks there or reach any super remote communities but I felt it was an unequivicable success.

Something about Ecuador enchanted me. The way she moved made me forget myself. There was magic in her breast.

 

Peru, capitol of the Inca empire. Shortly I discovered that the Incas were only the last of myriad empires & fascinating cultures that had thrived in Peru.

The first place I went to after leaving Bolivia was the famed city of Cusco in the middle-range Andes; Spanish colonial home of South American Native 'Modern' Architecture and trailhead for the famous Inca Trail.

 

Highest capitol in the world. I spent three weeks in the north east part of the country. My first stop of my round-the-world journey, in Bolivia I was a reporter for a US-based website on the country.

This time was filled with short but amazing treks that took me to Aymara villages in the mountains along pathways paved with stones during the inca empire which at times were wide and smooth enough for a truck to have driven on, Aymara language (the predominant and Native American language of the area), harrowing bus journeys, and hiking to a 5100 Meter lake and glacier.

Ending it all with a farm stay on the island of the sun where lies the birthplace of the Incas and the ancient home of Aymara culture.