Chaco Church

Among South American countries Paraguay probably has the saddest history. Coming down from the zenith of the Jesuit utopia there followed colonial stagnation, then independence that brought on a trio of dictators who, successively, hermetically sealed the country from the outside world, turned it into a personal fiefdom, and finally dragged it into a suicidal war against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It would be no understatement to say that the War of the Triple Alliance absolutely annihilated Paraguay. Out of a pre-war population of some 500,000 Paraguay lost 300,000 people, or about 60% of its population, giving it the dubious distinction of being the most destructive (per capita) war of modern times (and possibly ever). Towards the end there were almost no men left in the country and little kids were sent to the front lines wielding little more than sharpened fruit and domestic utensils (hence the well-known phrase regarding kitchen sinks). And all this over an issue that didn't initially involve Paraguay at all.

Stained glass window in the national pantheon depicting Francisco Solano Lopez, Paraguay's dictator who plunged the country into the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance. Recently his historical legacy has been reviewed and he is now a national hero.

Missionary Opposition

You don't have to know me (or read my blog) for long to know that my views of organised religion are sceptical to say the least. I have seen far too much intolerance, violence, fear, hatred, bigotry and plain ignorance stemming from religious faith for me to want to have anything to do with it. Sure, it can be a force for good, though it seems to me that those are always individual cases that probably occur in spite of religion rather than because of it. Paraguay's history, however, provides one example of a religious organisation living up to its promises of fairness, justice, betterment. Sadly the temporal success of the Jesuits amongst the Guarani provoked the jealousies of the stronger colonial powers. Nevertheless their achievements still live on in today's Paraguay and form an integral part of the national narrative.

All that remains of the vast Baroque church at Jesus de Taverangue, a church that would have been considered grand even in a large, European city of the time, but built  entirely by Guarani.

Brazilian Gems

Brazilwood and then sugar cane may have been the initial sources for Brazil's wealth, but they did not last long: you can't build an economy on a pretty tree and the uptake of sugar cane in the Caribbean was far more successful. To understand Brazil's success you need to head inland from Rio to the hills and mountains of Minas Gerais. Initially all development was along the coast, but soon explorers, the so-called bandeirantes operating out of São Paulo, moved further inland. The initial motivation was to find indigenous slaves, but soon the bandeirantes found that the vast interior was home to unimaginable mineral wealth. The gold deposits in and Ouro Preto were discovered in the late 17th century (they were hard to miss as gold was found in large nuggets in the streams) and soon people were flocking to the region to get a piece of the action.

View of Ouro Preto, once the richest city in the world and the epicentre of the world's largest gold rush that formed the basis of Brazil's wealth.

More Than Just Samba

Travelling through the northeast has helped shatter two preconceived, stereotypical images of Brazil, of landscape and culture. Brazil is often viewed as being synonymous with the Amazon rainforest and perhaps, for those who have a penchant for nature documentaries, like myself, with vast wetlands like the Pantanal.  But there is far more to it than that. The wetland theme started off well as I left Belem, almost all the way to São Luís, but as soon as my road turned inland, into the heart of the northeast that soon gave way to the dry savannah of the cerrado and the scruby, caatinga forest of the sertão. This vast, dry hinterland is reminiscent of the American wild west, and the small, dusty towns towns that dot the rolling hills need only a couple of gunslingers to complete the picture. This is cattle country and last year's drought was tough, as evidenced by the verges populated by rotting carcases and their attendant flocks of vultures. Lonely escarpments and odd rock formations dot this forgotten landscape, until you finally approach the coast again and sugar cane plantations take over.

Brazil isn't just the Amazon and Pantanal. There are some incredible landscapes, such as the multitude of crystal-clear pools amongst the white coastal sand dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses national park.

Pics 2 (Asia)

It took me almost exactly 19 months to zig-zag my way from Turkmenistan through to Australia. As the largest continent, and cradle of civilisations there is plenty to see, taste, explore and experience. I have had innumerable encounters with unfailingly lovely people, made some life-long friendships, tried a plethora of strange dishes, witnessed some spectacular(ly odd) ceremonies, seen breathtaking landscapes, and learnt  much about culture and history that have allowed me to understand the world a little bit better (I hope). I also hope that this knowledge has made me a better, wiser person

Mushy introspection aside Asia has been an agreeably cheap destination (apart from North Korea) and I've managed to average a daily spend of £11, of which I'm quite proud. That average will definitely not hold out in the following months though. I've also picked out a selection of some of my favourite photos (in no particular order) from the past 19 months that I haven't previously used in any of my posts. Some of them perhaps have some deeper meaning or political significance, whereas other I just found beautiful. I hope you like them as much as I do (what are your favourites? are there any that you particularly like? If so feel free to let me know by leaving a comment.).

Mongolian girl.

What Have The Portuguese Ever Done For Us?

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit and set up shop in the Indonesian archipelago. They were also the last to leave when they were finally kicked out of East Timor in 1975. Nevertheless their influence has been relatively minor. The Indonesian language has only about fifty loanwords from Portuguese, such as gereja (church, from igreja), keju (cheese, from queijo), sepatu (shoe, from sapato), which pretty much sums up early European preoccupations: convert the primitive heathens, make them civilised by dressing like us, and finding a way to make them prepare decent food and not this rice rubbish (talk to almost any European who has spent a longer time in (south)east Asia and they will usually say that the one thing they are missing from home is cheese. The only lasting remnants left by the Portuguese are the name of the island of Flores (meaning "flowers") and Catholicism, the prevalent religion therein.

Traditional Flores ikat weaving. Simple designs and bold colours.

An Island, Not A Dance

The islands of Nusa Tenggara stretch out due east from Java like beads on a string: Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Alor. The names exotic and evocative. My progress through to the tip of Sumbawa was relatively quick and, for the first time in quite a while, I was no longer the only white person in the bus. All were heading from Bali, via the Gilis (a cluster of islands off Lombok that have become a party favourite), to the port of Labuanbajo on the tip of Flores, from where there are many tours to the islands of Komodo national park. The trans-Sumbawa buses connect to daily ferries linking Sape to 'Bajo. But to the south, lies an island that many people bypass. Sumba's attractions are not as obvious as those of Java, Bali or Sulawesi. For Indonesians Sumba is best known for its horses. Not because they are particularly special, but because Sumba, with its drier climate and semi-savannah landscape, is the only place in the archipelago that is suited to them. For us foreigners who have seen horses before and think they are rather humdrum. Instead, thanks to being a generally poor island with few useful resources, the Sumbanese were pretty much left to their own devices throughout the colonial period, an attitude that didn't really change much with Indonesia's independence 65 years ago, so tribal traditions are stronger here than almost anywhere else in the archipelago.

The spectacular rumah adat of Ratenggaro village in west Sumba. In this part of the island the houses are larger (housing up to four families) and the roofs taller. Houses in Sumba all share a similar layout: ground floor for animals, first floor for people, second floor for eating communal meals and for the ancestral spirits, or marapu.

Which Bali Do You Want?

"Have you been to Bali yet?" is the question that I've been asked by almost every single Indonesian I've met in the 3 months I've been here. Although Indonesia is a vast country comprising over 17,000 islands, 300 ethnic groups and 742 different languages, I am white and ergo I must be going to Bali. If any foreigner has heard about Indonesia it is invariably about Bali. For many Australians it is their equivalent to the Spanish Costas for sun-starved northern Europeans, and their way of holidaying there is not at all dissimilar. Yes, I was planning to go to Bali I would reply, but also Sulawesi, Ambon, Flores, Sumatra and Java. There is more to Indonesia than just one island. Bali's overwhelming presence on the tourist trail through Indonesia made me resent it even before I had set foot on it. I was sure I wouldn't like it and wasn't planning on staying long.

My nightmare image of Bali.

Ferry Long Way Round

In Ternate I found myself out on a limb as it were. I needed to get back to Surabaya where I had left the bulk of my belongings with Erika and I had to return there before continuing east again through the Indonesian archipelago. As I've mentioned before I hate retracing my steps and so refused to consider going back through Sulawesi and instead decided to head south through the rest of the Moluccas before swinging west and back to Java. It's a route that is heavily dependent on boat schedules, the information for which is patchy at best, but I decided to take a leap of faith and see how far I could get.

In blue my route out to Ternate from Surabaya and in red my route back. It took nine days, of which over 100 hours were spent on boats (and a further 15 waiting for them).

Born To Die

Some say that the most important event in the (pre-)history of mankind was the discovery of fire and how to control it. I would say that equally important, if not more so, was the day man came to understand his own mortality and it scared the bejeezus out of him. The former gave him tools, but the latter gave him purpose. Ever since then man has been trying everything in his power to escape his fate. The most obvious manifestation of this is religion. In its myriad guises, and its various messages about ethics, lessons on how to properly sacrifice animals, what clothes to wear, and whether you can marry your first cousin the one constant seems to be a reassuring narrative of some sort of life after death, whether it be reincarnation, a hall for warriors full of wenches serving mead, or some abstract heaven. Follow us, the religions say, and we will ensure that the curse of mortality doesn't befall you. Even Buddhism, which is seen by many to be a philosophy rather than a religion, has incorporates the idea of reincarnation.

Smoking's a killer. Torajan skulls left with cigarettes as offerings.

Java Man (aka Where Are The Muslims?)

Of the little we in the West know of Indonesia, the fact that it's the most populous Muslim country in the world, with over 200 million officially registered adherents (more on this definition in a later post), is probably the most widely known factoid, helped by the odd Islamist bombing and display of irrational intolerance that make great media headlines. However it is an Islam that wouldn't be recognised in the Middle East. Islam came relatively late to the Indonesian archipelago, some time in the 12th century, by which time Hinduism had already been there for a millennium and Buddhism about half that, and it wasn't until the late 15th century that it became the dominant religion. Such a long legacy of Indian religions cannot but fail to leave a trace, a trace that is most evident in the Javanese heartland, which, paradoxically, is also considered to be among the most conservatively Muslim parts of the country.

Smoking Mount Merapi (one of the most active volcanoes in the world) towering above the ruins of Borobudur (visible in the centre-right of the picture as a small point, though trust me, it's big) in the pre-dawn mist.

Dangerous Island

Sumatra is a dangerous place. It's not the inhabitants though, but the island itself. Something deep down in Sumatra, more fundamental, geological, doesn't seem to like people. I've already mentioned the Boxing Day earthquake, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There have been at lest half a dozen serious ones since then claiming a few thousand lives. Slightly further back in time southern Sumatra was host to the largest volcanic eruption of the past 180 years when the Krakatoa (aka Krakatau) volcano erupted violently in 1883. The explosion, which was heard up to 5000km away, became the first worldwide media sensation, claimed the lives of over 36,000 people, plunged the world into an ash-induced winter for several years, and even had a film made about it.

Intricate decorations adorning a traditional Batak house in the Toba area.

East Is East

Six days in Brunei was enough and so I set off for Sarawak. One of the reasons I stayed so long was that I wanted to do a trek to Gunung Mulu national park, just outside the Bruneian border and accessible from BSB. It is famous for housing one of the largest caves in the world which is home to a population of several million bats as well as some magnificent primary rainforest and karst terrain. To be able to afford the tour though I had to find other people with whom to split the costs of transport, guides and porters, but unfortunately I had no luck. Such is the way when travelling solo: sometimes it is not possible to do certain activities because you need a group of people and they just aren't available. Instead I had to make do with the caves at Batu Niah, also in Sarawak, but only a dozen kilometres from the main highway instead of requiring several days' hike (or a trip by plane). The main cave there is also staggeringly huge and is home to several species of bats and swiftlets, whose droppings, like in caves throughout the region, carpet the floor and give it a characteristic, overpowering odour. What perhaps makes the caves at Niah special are that they have been home to humans for some 40,000 years, with some of the oldest archaeological finds in all of southeast Asia. And they have been continually used for that entire time up to the present day, where local tribes collect swiftlet nests. Although it's not the season for collection the bamboo scaffolds used by the collectors are still up and extend vertiginously 50m or more up to the roof of the cave, seemingly held aloft by a single, narrow pole, somehow defying the laws of gravity.

Looking back at the entrance to the main cave at Niah. You can see that plants manage to grow for a little distance into the cave, but then lack of sunlight allows only a few hardy mosses to grow and then nothing.

Risk And The Perception Of Risk

Most visitors to the Philippines do not visit the southern island of Mindanao. But then again neither do Filipinos who live in Luzon and the Visayas. Not because they can't afford it (although it's true that many can't it is possible to get a cheap, budget airline ticket from Luzon to Mindanao for only $20 or less, well within the reach of the burgeoning Philippine middle-class), but because they are afraid to. Mindanao is home to various separatist rebel groups (such as the unfortunately-named MILF) and has seen numerous bombings, abductions and killings of foreigners and locals alike. For most Manileños it's a lawless, anarchic place with danger lurking around every corner, completely forgetting that the vast majority of people who live there are ordinary citizens just trying to get on with their lives (if it was so dangerous they would have probably left long ago themselves). I, however, despite the many warnings and looks of incredulity from other Filipinos, was determined to go there. Partly because I find that there is always a huge disconnect between risk and the perception of risk. Often when I mention that I have been to North Korea the first question people ask is "but isn't it dangerous?" to which I, in all honesty, reply that it is probably the safest country to visit as a tourist, even more so than Japan, South Korea or any European country (with the possible exception of Liechtenstein). The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office would rather err on the side of caution and advises against travel to Mindanao (see map below), but luckily I am travelling on a Czech passport and a brief perusal of their foreign office website I found no similar warning, so that makes it OK to visit then. My other reason for going to Mindanao is far more prosaic: the only scheduled international sea connections from the Philippines leave from the island. One south to Indonesia, the other west to Malaysian Borneo. I had lost in my attempt to enter the country overland, but I was damned if I was going to be beaten twice in succession.

The British FCO travel advisory for the Philippines. As you can see the vast majority of the country is considered safe. Only Mindanao is dangerous, especially the western part where you shouldn't go under any circumstances (only that's where my ferry leaves from).

Auld Acquaintance

A big reason that motivated me to come to Taiwan (because let's be honest, who goes to Taiwan?) was to see my friend Steve. We had met six years ago when I was travelling in western China and have stayed in touch ever since. One of the advantages, and also disadvantages, of a travelling life is that you end up having friends all over the world, however you rarely get to see them. Luckily with the wonders of the internet it is possible to easily keep in touch. But if I am at all close then I will certainly make the effort to meet up.

My view for New Year's Eve. Impeccable view of the fireworks from Taipei 101.

Buddhist Travelling

Most visitors to Mongolia, even backpackers, form groups and hire a van and driver to travel around the country. If there are four or more of you this is barely more expensive than taking public transport, allows you to get to those hard to reach places (of which there are more than a few in Mongolia) and saves a lot of time. The latter aspect was made all too clear to me when I popped into the tourist information centre in Moron to get some info about getting to, and hiking around, Hovsgol lake, Mongolia's second-largest and the little sister to lake Baikal just across the border in Russia. The information centre was staffed by a Czech and a German volunteer and so, pleased at finding a fellow countryman, I ended up spending about an hour with them chatting about this and that. A topic that invariably cropped up was visas, as they were having problems with theirs. I still had 9 days left on mine and was feeling relaxed about getting to Ulaan Baatar in time to extend it ... until they informed me that applications for extensions must be submitted four working days before expiry and that the application can only be done in the capital. There wasn't a hope in hell that I would make it to the lake and back in time so I quickly altered my plans and plotted a new course heading east.

Empty vodka bottles littering the steppe. Mongolian men are more than a little fond of the hard liquor and you will often meet some that reek of alcohol, even early in the morning. Usually they are harmless, but sometimes they can get aggresive.

Helicopters And Shamans

As I've mentioned before meeting different people, from all walks of life, backgrounds and cultures is one of the most enriching aspects of travelling. A while back my mother sent me the contact details of a nephew of one of her friends who she said lives in Mongolia. It turns out that Hamid doesn't just simply live in Mongolia (actually only part-time, during the summer), but he has studied their culture extensively and films documentaries about Mongolia and its people and even runs a camp out in the far north of the country. Here was an encounter I really didn't want to pass up.

Gers, forests and mountains in the evening light.

Wakhan Do It

Tajikistan is a poor country. It has the 7th lowest GDP of any non-African country, has no industry to speak of (one large aluminium smelting plant, though the ore has to be imported from abroad), few mineral resources worth mentioning (a handful of gold and silver mines) and only 7% of the country is arable land (whereas 50% is comprised of mountains). Its long and porous border with Afghanistan that the government cannot possibly effectively control makes it an important conduit for drugs. The evidence of the drugs trade can easily be seen if you take a ride north from Dushanbe along the Varzob valley where tasteless modern mansions line the river, the vast majority, according to my Tajik friends, built using drug money (the rest from government corruption). The only export Tajikistan has in any quantities is cheap labour for Russian construction sites.

As you can see from the map, mountains are the one thing Tajikistan has in abundance.

Kurds Away

Our last stop on our little road trip was the Howraman valleys in Kurdistan close to the Iraqi border. From the mountains of Luristan the route wound northwards to the mountains of Kurdistan. Finally, as opposed to most of the mountains in Iran which are separated by wide, flat valleys, here they were squeezed together to form proper, vertiginous mountain valleys more reminiscent of the Hindu Kush.

The mountain road from Nosud to Nodesheh rises to over 2000m with stunning views over the nearby mountains and the Iraqi border just down the valley.

Hermitage

East of Thessaloniki lies the peninsula of Halkidiki with its three distinctive "fingers". It is a popular spot for Thessalonians to retreat to in Summer to enjoy the many fine beaches and clear waters of the first two "fingers". The easternmost one, known as Mount Athos after the towering peak at the southernmost tip, is devoid of such heavy tourist development. It could be because the coast there is more rugged and there are fewer beaches, but is more likely because the place is owned by a score of Orthodox monasteries access to lay people is strictly controlled.

Map showing the location of Mount Athos in Greece