From the holiest city of India, Varanasi, I am very excited to announce that from today, I am part of the new team of writers for Rolf Pott’s Vagabonding. As you can see, for the occasion I partied with the sexiest holy cows at Dasasvamedha ghat

Yes. I have been keeping this hidden for a few weeks, but now it is time to disclose. For all those who still do not know, Rolf Potts is the author of Vagabonding: an uncommon guide to the art of long-term world travel and an accomplished American travel writer who has had a past not too dissimilar from my present. Together with other eight writers, I will have to dispense some pearls of vagabonding travel writing on a weekly basis, and more precisely, every Thursday at 12.00 pm, American Eastern Standard Time. Please keep tuned, set up your RSS readers, and enjoy.

I can just say that, as much as I am stoked being on board – especially being the only non-American in the group -, I am also greatly excited and feeling like something is finally moving towards the right direction, after all these years biting the dust. I will try not to disappoint my old readers, and the new ones, trying to keep the standard to the highest level possible during this year of travels. A year of the Monkey, I’d say, misguided for a Dragon…

Let me tell you, I love India as much as I hate it: chaotic, smelly, pretty dirty, but also divine, sublime, naturalistically beautiful, and so sacred it is impossible to put it into plain words.

I am back in India after one and a half years living la Muslim vida loca in Malaysia, and I am back with a plan: my Journey to the West.  I have been planning and working hard on this for the past six months, and finally, I got myself kickstarted out of Southeast Asia, for a much needed change. Because even tropical paradise, after a while, starts stinking. Exactly like when I frequently forgot to throw out the Malaysian trash, and it transformed into a bowl of steaming vegetable skins and white, twirling maggots. Bleargh.

Journey to the West, we were saying. Yes, this is the plan for 2012, as it may be the last year for mankind, why spending it doing something I do not like? Why chasing money? Or fame? Or education? The Gods may be crazy, but they decided to send me off on the journey of a lifetime… or one of the new ones. I want to go back home for a little while, and I am trying to go without catching a flight. Yes, I had to in order to reach Kolkata, but let’s say this is part one of a bigger project. The Subcontinent, first. The rest, later. Damn visas.

So, here I am in India again. I took it slow, I got it sinking inside for two weeks before writing anything, I absorbed it as a Spongebob under running water, constantly keeping that silly smile. A cow to the left, a cow to the right, three hundred people on the bus when it should fit thirty, elbows in my teeth, buying a train ticket like winning the New Year’s lottery, and you have a chance over one million. I love it. It was much needed and a refreshing getaway from the pension-fund-owner-friendly chillness of Southeast Asia.

Kolkata was like doing acid in London and see the lamp posts lysergically transforming into twirling tentacles and reach for the yellow cabs, everywhere. I loved Akilesh and the boys from Kalimpong, thank you people for making my transition a lovely one. These Northeastern people are amazing; I will see you soon up there. Then, the coast of Orissa was a welcome change from the coldish climate of wintered West Bengal. Staying in a desert, scorched land just a few miles from the beach with a community of international surfers was another nice addition to the shopping list of experiences that this country can profuse left and right… om shanti om India.

Last but not least, the quiet home of my good friends Matteo and Carola in Bollophur was a welcoming haven of peace to recharge my batteries before jumping on the train again… tomorrow.

These are, in a whirlwind of a nutshell, the Indian experiences thus far: I did not do too much, for two weeks, or maybe I already did too many things and I do not realize as of yet. But my mood is high, and I am really looking forward breaking the keyboard and write as much as possible this year because the Monkey Dragon will be, like a bad Bruce Lee rip off made in Cinecitta’ by Lucio Fulci and Joe d’Amato in a tag wrestling team. Keep tuned, and support. More news on the Journey to the West will be disclosed as they become reality: at the present stage, consider it will entice rock and roll, charity, madness, mayhem and travel to the less fashionable corners of the known routes.

I recently met Tom in Bangkok; he is a travel/guidebook and adventure writer based in Thailand (check out his guides to Cambodia and Angkor Wat out on excellent MOON Publishing), and also former guitarist of Bangkok garage punkers Pussy and the Learjets. In brief, the kind of person I consider a hero. Check more Learjets here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQCRufJnPlM

Tom is also the author of Sacred Skin, a very interesting photo book on sak yant, Thailand’s sacred tattoos, and the first on the subject in English. Expect to see a review cum interview up here soon if I won’t be able to place the article elsewhere… meanwhile, I have started my trip and I am in India. All is in a state of blur at the moment as many things are boiling and will be coming up extremely soon… some very good things for this poor little Monkey!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqFiucWKo-8

Please take one hour of your time to check out this documentary put together by a crew of  very “special travelers”. I found it thanks to a friend and had a very good time watching it. These guys have made their passion a full time job which is taking them around the world.  I thought this may be inspirational for many of you following me out there, plus it is indeed a great teaser of some of the areas of Northwest India I will be visiting in around two months time.

Relax, kick back and enjoy, and check out what some of these crazy Italians have done with their lives… maybe  questionable choices, but definitely enlightening. Think over it!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMZ8DO9F4Mo

Ok, I’ve just finished watching TAQWACORE and what’s better than penning down my fresh opinions in Monkeyrockworld? Nothing, especially as this is so much up my alley of interests. I do not want to be annoying retelling stories you may read elsewhere on the net, but in a nutshell, Eyesteel Films produced the documentary on the explosion of “Taqwacore”: what the heck is that? Muslim punk rock baby. Yep… if you can get more controversial than that, please try to explain it. Named after the famous novel “The Taqwacores” by Michael “Muhammad” Knight (which is another movie all to itself, not to be confounded with this one), TAQWACORE is the first wave of American punk bands (and well, all spectres of punk as we go from the almost ska outbursts of the Kominas to the full-on crusty sludge of Al Thawra) who earned a reputation for bringing it out on a quite impressive coast-to-coast American tour. This movie documents that trip on the “Green Van” of Taqwa (the Muslim concept of God consciousness), the reception from the American Muslim punks, a paradoxical road trip ending with a real punk performance at Chicago’s American Muslims conference. The Taqwacores really bring a spark of excitement in the otherwise dull, middle-class, plastic American punk contemporary scene by bringing new lymph into the movement. It is definitely interesting.

As a musician who has extensively toured the USA, I can relate to most of the episodes and I can say that it was not this first part of the movie who got me. Even now in this movie, America looks so flat, and dumb. I honestly cannot believe how I would have sold my mother to land a green card and live there, just 5 years ago. You don’t have to be a Muslim Islamist punk to raise the attention there, as it looks like by only flatulating you would probably get the same effect. It is extremely funny how the Taqwacores use this “paranoia” to make fun of the media and their attention to this new “revolution”. This makes everything look so inspiringly “punk”, to me, today. Also it looks quite indicative  that the movie has been produced by a Canadian company… as if the subject matter would be good to be touched, but only with a stick.

Anyhow, the BEST part of the movie is actually when two of the Kominas‘ guys leave the USA to relocate to their ancestors’ land, PAKISTAN. The images of the country are beautiful, and may prove to be extremely shocking to the average American or Western viewer, but not for me, not anymore. Well, the guys form a new band, they fly Michael Knight in, and they manage to organize a show on top of one of Lahore’s city center buildings avoiding South Asia’s cast differences, and giving it back to anyone in the truest punk movement of the whole movie. Seeing Knight screaming “Bush is a son of a bitch” in Urdu, however quite jaded elsewhere, looks pretty apt here.

My critics are essentially two, tough: firstly, it seems like these Kominas guys cannot do anything but getting high on excellent Pakistani hash and slurping weed milkshakes before Knight’s arrival. Although I’d probably like to taste the same stuff, I just think this makes the whole “movement” appear idiosyncratic just to the lowest form of punk “rebellion”. Getting high is great, but takes you nowhere, especially in a country with zero punk history such as Pakistan. Second, this Michael Muhammed Knight, doesn’t have the grip I imagined. As a Muslim, and as “Imam of the Taqwacores”, he loses his discourse into too much portrait of Americanism I guess he originally tried to distance himself from by writing “The Taqwacores” . Although he is a brave young man carrying on a torch and making an impact, I am unsure how to explain myself; my feelings come from years of observation of behaviors totally embedded in most American rock musicians, of all passes of life, which I sensed in Knight. I though he, once in Pakistan, should have left ol’ Sam’s ghost back home… instead, I could really feel it was still there, haunting the grounds.

Anyhow, you HAVE TO watch this movie as it is a document and a proof that something, in rock and American society, is moving and changing. Hopefully I’ll be able to follow up the investigation on music in Pakistan as I plan to visit next year. Any information, query or contact regarding Pakistani bands, musicians or artists, please send them my way.

Day 736, chronicle 098, Manfredonia (N41°37.633′ E15°54.941′) Italy, 15 October 2011 2:55 pm -

The trip ended Sunday, October 9 at 12:15 when I got off my bicycle and I shook hands with the mayor of Manfredonia, Angelo Riccardi, who greeted me at the headquarters of the LUC (Urban Cultural Laboratory). A stage was prepared there and I received plaques, trophies and other awards from representatives of the municipality of Manfredonia, the Olimpic committee of Foggia, the UISP Gargano, associations for diversity “Il delfino” and “Occhi felici” (happy eyes), Avis and the Association Gargano 2000. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised and genuinely touched by the warm welcome back I received from both the authorities and the citizens of my home-town, a worthy grand finale of two years of travels. It still seems unimaginable and incredible to me, even if I personally experienced it. Although not even a week has passed since I reached my destination, my cycling life seems already distant in time, belonging to another phase of my existence. Not being in the middle of the “action”, I find it hard to tell about the last month cycling from Thessaloniki, where I wrote the previous entry of this diary. I am composing this last chronicle on the old high school desk in my youth bedroom at my parents’ house, and I cannot help remembering all those places where I laid my computer to describe the prominent facts of the adventure. It is the first time in my life that I kept a diary and found it a very useful exercise to rethink and reflect on what happened, besides being a way to ponder and draw lessons. Even if I have always tried to make the story interesting for you, oh my readers, I ask pardon of the tedium I may however have caused you.

The last part of the journey, when my mind was already in Manfredonia, and every kilometre was one less to the goal, started on September the 27^th 2011 at nine o’clock when I left Kyriaki’s house in Thessaloniki and headed westward onto the motorway E75 and then the E90, that cuts across western Macedonia. I covered about 80 kilometres of flat terrain and I was about to climb the mountains that lead to the mythical Mount Olympus, when a police patrol approached me and told me to stop. The agents informed me that it was forbidden for bicycles to go on the highway. I replied that I did not know it and that I would leave it to the next exit. “You will not proceed any further on this motorway!!” exclaimed the woman agent while taking my passport and registering my name on a book similar to that of the fines. In all the countries I crossed in this journey, it was the first time, with the exception of Burma, that I had serious trouble with the law, mainly because I’ve basically always respected the rules of the road. While the man agent was talking on the radio, the woman was scolding me about the dangers and irresponsibility of my conduct for the car and truck drivers, but especially for my safety. Within ten minutes the rescue service van arrived and my bicycle was loaded on it, while I sat on the back seat of the patrol car. Here the conversation moved away from my criminal conduct to the trip and my life. I was sure that they would have driven me to the police station; instead, they took me to the state road N4 to Igoumenitsa, and they left me there. I thanked them and assured them that I would never take the motorway again. I also promised that in my diaries I would talk with positive notes about the Greek police. After I thought that: if cops are so kind to those who contravene the law, not even fining or making them pay the expenses of the service van, I am not surprised that the Greek state is in a situation of default …

I spent the same night in my tent on the roadside near an abandoned house a few kilometres from Leventis and the next day I started to ride on the road that runs along the highway. I entered the mountainous Epirus region, through roads climbing steep slopes covered by a dense pine forest that stretches before your eyes up to the peaks around 2500 meters of the Pindos Mountains range. I crossed the pass of Katara and I stopped for the night near Mersovon in an area inhabited by bears, whose presence is clearly marked by road signs that game me concerns to sleep outside. On 29 September I went down to the valley descending a slope of about fifty kilometres, reaching Pamvotis lake and the city of Ioannina. I spent that night in the suburbs of the city. From here to the coast it is relatively flat with the exception of the hills that protect the town of Igoumenitsa. The port has ferries to Turkey and Italy, my last frontier to cross into my motherland. At the time of embarking the Aegean Queen, I had a moment of sadness because I considered this as the true end of my journey, but I had to change my mind later, because the arrival in Italy brought me unexpected and pleasant surprises.

I covered the 168 nautical miles that separate Igoumenitsa from Brindisi in my sleeping-bag on the rear deck, because all  the chairs inside were promptly occupied by entire families and groups that, judging by the language and the facial features, came from the Eastern Balkans. Landing in Puglia, I found Nadia, a cyclo-friend from Latiano, who welcomed me and with whom I had made an appointment for the next day in Lecce to attend the regional cyclo-gathering organized by FIAB (Italian Federation of Friends of the Bicycle). That Saturday, October 1st, I visited the historic city of Brindisi where I was approached by a young man on a bicycle who asked me: “Aren’t you the one who is travelling from Vietnam?”, I replied “In the flesh and bike!”. So I followed Daniele to his house, where I was a guest for lunch before leaving heading to Lecce. I did not reach the city on that day, but I stopped about ten kilometres before it and slept in an olive grove. Sunday, October 2nd was the last of three days of cyclo-gatherings and I joined the other participants to visit the beautiful baroque city and surrounding countryside, ending up in a wine growers’ cooperative for a glass and homemade pasta. For that night and the next I was Nadia’s guest, with whom I spent the next day cycling to Campomarino on the Ionian coast. We swam in fresh but crystalline seawater. The next day I followed the Adriatic state road reaching Bari in the afternoon, and the same evening I told my travel experience to the Ruota Libera (Free-wheel) cyclist members association. In Bari I was a guest of Alain, a French cyclist transplanted here for several years, who created the first rapid service delivery by bicycle, the Bici Express Bari (www.baribiciexpress.it). October the 8th I reached the town of Margherita di Savoia, where I was received by the Vice-Mayor, who handed me a plaque, and by members of AVM (Association of Volunteers Margherita) and Unitalsi associations. I spent a couple of hours showing them videos and talking about the trip. The next day, the 730th, it was pouring with rain but this did not prevent a delegation of Manfredonians cyclists to pick me up and ride together for fifty kilometres up to my home-town, stopping for refreshments at Zapponeta.

Finally, the sporty aspect of the project “From Vietnam to Italy by bicycle for the disabled” ends here, but the humanitarian aim will continue for the next three months when I will travel throughout Italy to tell my experience. I will return cycling for another sporty-humanitarian project from next January. Keep on following me, there is still a lot to see …. Until next time.
PS: If you have any question or want to contact me to talk about my experience in your town in Italy, write to mt(at)matteot(dot)com

Project official website with news, photos and videos: www.travelforaid.com