We left Matteo Tricarico in India, during his Travel For Aid odissey across Asia into Europe… after a short stint in Dubai, Matteo is now in Iran, a fascinating country full of culture, deserts and very hospitable people…

Before beginning this journey, I read on the internet diaries of other cyclists who travelled through Iran in the last ten years and their words reassured me since they all spoke highly of the kindness, hospitality and friendliness of Iranian population. So far, but I’m pretty sure that I will not change my mind; I can join in exalting these features of the Iranians. In the last eighteen months of travelling I could recall hundreds of examples people’s kindness and courtesy, regardless of the country where I was, I believe that in the case of Iran the “surprise” is due to negative image that the Western media give of this country. It does not seem possible that the citizens of an anti-western and traditionalist Islamic theocracy, where the Sharia is the law of reference, can be warm, friendly and even expansive towards Western travellers, who are supposed to be “infidels” trying to corrupt the local youth. The surprise to find so open and sympathetic people towards foreigners is the result of bias, combined with the prejudice, which comes from American propaganda, that  would like to submit to the Westerner rules this country that, among other things, is a  large producers of oil and natural gas and therefore it is to be stripped of these natural wealth …

At five in the afternoon of April 12, I was waiting for my turn to passport control in the vast hall of the customs at the port of Sharjah, a small emirate a few miles from Dubai. The hall is divided into two distinct areas, respectively for single men and families, meaning married women with their husbands and children. The latter were checked first, although there was not a real recognition of the ladies who did not show their face covered with a full “niqab” and who did not even get up from their chair. In fact, the immigration officers trusted the photographs on the passport, I believe unveiled!, shown them by the husbands. Given this procedure of identification, or better lack of identification, I understand the reaction of Muslims in Europe where ladies are asked to show their face to check their identity, it must seem to be an absurd claim of Europeans, unthinkable in their countries.  Boarding the ferry to Iran it was fast enough. I personally brought the bicycle in the cargo hold already loaded with cars, trucks, six horses in their trailers and two motorcycles that, I later discovered, belonged to two senior British bikers riding back home from Dubai after ending their professional careers in the UAE and thus beginning their pensioner’s life. Moving away from the coast, this twinkling of Dubai skyscrapers is impressive and, with its 828 meters world record height, the Burj Khalifa distinctly stands out, being visible to no less than 30 miles. On April 13 at nine in the morning, I landed in Bandar-E Abbas, Iran’s largest port on the Persian Gulf, therefore simply called “bandar”: the port. Of the approximately 200 passengers of the ferry we, the three Westerners, were the last to receive the entry stamp on the passport and not before a small third-degree aiming at clarifying the reasons for our presence in that land and making sure that we were not nosy journalists. I reached the city centre and went to a bank where I had confirmation that, because of the embargo and the “war on terror”, Iran is out of Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, etc. networks, so everything must be paid in cash. That branch of Mellat Bank did not have an exchange desk and the director instructed an employee to accompany me to the nearest exchange shop a few hundred meters far away. Rich of 6,400,000 Rials (400 Euros), with the bearded face of the Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Islamic Republic of Iran printed on each bill, and accompanied by a group of boys on scooters who took me to almost all hotels in town, I found a small one for the night. In the nearby internet café I discovered that both Facebook and my blog, same as the CNN and BBC websites, are blocked by the state censorship, although the block can easily bypassed with a VPN.

I acquired a  local SIM card,  and the next day I took the highway A79 which climbs gradually up to 900 meters. It is the Iranian plateau, whose peaks reach up to 2500 meters and its rocky slopes are absolutely devoid of vegetation, while the valleys are dotted with thorn bushes and just a few slim cactus. The air is so dry that the sweat evaporates immediately, so that I did not get what little relief the perspiration should provide on my skin. Accustomed to India, a country with one of the highest density population in the world and where villages or a service station are at least every 20 miles, this first day cycling in Iran, in areas very sparsely populated, I could not find a single town or a place to buy food and water for the first 70 miles. I arrived at night with my stomach in painful cramps and so dehydrated that my lips had become two hard peels, while my throat was so dry that any attempt to swallow what little saliva my body produced was an agonizing activity. My salvation was the only shop in the tiny village of Qotbabad where I purchased a gallon of water, drank within two hours, and I had canned food for dinner. From that first day, I learned a fundamental lesson to survive in the desert: always carry a good amount of water that, even though it weighs like stones, could make the difference between life and death. Since then, I have always with me a good stock of food such as canned beans, peas, lentils and eggplant, as well as fresh products such as tomatoes and fava beans bought directly from the farmers who sell them on the roadside, or energetic dry food like biscuits, dates and figs. One of the pleasures I enjoy visiting a new country is to taste local products, although in today’s globalized world the exact same good, manufactured and distributed by  few international corporations, can be found in different states. In Iran, due to the embargo, such global products are missing, and the country lives in a kind of self-sufficient food regime, making the discovery of native products even more interesting. That first night on Iranian roads, I camped about ten miles after Qotbabad. The tent was already set, when two guys on a motorbike approached me and, speaking in Farsi, tried to explain me that there was a problem with the place I chose to spent the night. After a while, I could understand the word “wadi” that in Arabic means river. In fact, the tent was in the bed of a stream that, although at the moment dry, could be flooded with rain falling on the mount peaks during the night. The danger was real for the sky was cloudy, so I packed again my stuff and followed them to what I thought to be their house or something similar, instead they took me on a hill five miles away where there was a hut inhabited by two elderly men who allowed me pitch the tent in their garden under two eucalyptus trees. I thanked the boys who jumped on the saddle on the scooter and disappeared into the darkness …

TO BE CONTINUED

My connection with Daniele started randomly over the internet when a few weeks before embarking on my Chinese teaching adventure, I was googling and researching about Punk in China. His blog “Secondo Me” was the first search result, and he was the first to tell me a few random things about life in Beijing and North east China.

Almost three years passed, me and Daniele had the chance to meet several times over different kinds of mouthwatering bei cang, discuss several topics, and sample several kinds of lung melting Chinese alcohol. Since the first time, I was really captured by the mental intensity of this out of the ordinary character, currently a Phd researcher in the prestigious People’s University in Beijing, writer and academic publisher disguised for a cheap ass punk with holes in his shirt and shoes and a taste for cheap, oily street food. In three words, my kind of guy.

Since then I’ve been an avid consumer of his excellent blogs and have tried to keep in touch as much as I could over the years… and finally decided to show you how much you can learn from this man sending him a few intense questions. For the sake of internet communication brevity, we didn’t engage in writing an encyclopedia, but what follows deserves to be tattooed on your brains with psychedelic ink. Enjoy.

MM- You are a PHD student in Beijing, but a particular one. Can you briefly introduce yourself, and draft an idea of your life philosophy?

Well, well… I was born in 1982 in Macerata, a peaceful (too peaceful) town in central Italy, close to the Adriatic sea, surrounded by countryside and hills of olive trees and grape vineyards. Since I was 14 I became more and more interested in different countries and cultures, travelling, reading, getting involved with punk music and politics. When I was 18 I move to Rome to study East Asian cultures. A couple of years later I went for my first time to this huge world called China. And here I’m living at the moment, enrolled in a Ph.D. course in the Sociology department of People’s University in Beijing. Travelling, reading, writing, punk music and cultural studies are still my biggest passions.

Life philosophy? Still looking for one. Let’s say that basically (and sorry if I am too insipid) I just try to enjoy the life, do what I like and feel to do, avoiding boredom and trying to leave this world better than it is at present.

MM-  I’ve read you call yourself an anarchist. How would you describe your mindset, especially seen from the perspective of the Chinese Communist Way?

When I was in high school I often played truant and spent all the morning in the library of my city, reading Kropotkin, Bakunin, Necaev. Since the beginning I felt fascinated from those radical thinkers. Anarchism is a political philosophy. I consider myself an anarchist because I refuse authoritarianism, because I dislike borders and property, because I believe in freedom and solidarity between people all over the world. I know it sounds likes an “utopia”, but in my opinion it is important to spend your life being coherent with your ideas, not always accepting compromises, doubting the mainstream. As far as you can, at least. Of course there are many ways to live anarchism (or no one in particular, if you prefer). At present for me to be an anarchist means to learn (that include to travel,  to study, to observe and to discuss) as much as I can and try to realize some social project as an attempt, an alternative to the “mainstream” life in the so called “developed countries” (that is production-consuming society). Be well informed and conscious about what happened around us as much as we can, create social forums, social spaces, social networks, be “open” and not victim of commercial advertisement and politic.

Trying to live like this in China is more difficult than in other countries but maybe more interesting and fascinating. For example, to live in a country with a strong internet control forces you to think about new ways of meeting and sharing information. But to say the truth, living as a foreign student here in Beijing is obviously easier than a Chinese citizen. And, apart from this, sometimes I feel I am more free here (in the meaning of opportunities and things you can do) than in a “democratic and civilized” western developed country as Italy.

MM- You are currently researching on migrant workers in China. Can you briefly explain to my readers what does it mean, and which significant experiences have you got so far approaching this problem?

I am trying to realize an ethnographic research among young female migrants in Beijing. That means among low educated, unmarried and young ladies who leave the countryside to reach the capital city and work as waitresses, maids, shop assistants, prostitutes. I am working on gender and migration studies. And this is hard for me. Because during my studies in Rome my major was Sinology, that means Chinese culture with a classical perspective. But since the first time I came to China (six years ago) I suddenly became interested in contemporary society and I shifted my studies’ focus to social and economic changes. I have no sociological or anthropological background and this make my research harder. Fortunately, my knowledge of the Chinese language and culture helps me a lot.

As you know, “guanxi” (social connections, relations, contacts) is one of the most important things in China. And luckily I can say I know many people and have much guanxi here in Beijing. That is why I can rely on a lot of Chinese and foreign friends who help me in my research. At the same time I met a lot of interesting people (migrants, social workers, NGOs members, students, activists, journalists, …) just thanks to my studies and surveys.

At the same time, I simply cannot completely concentrate and spend all my time on my Ph.D. research. I use to read and work a lot even on other things. For example I am interested even in other fields of Chinese society such as art, music, organizations. Sometimes I do work as interpreter or translator. I collaborate as a free lancer with China Files (an international press agency concerning China). I take part in political and social workshops and meetings. And, of course, I never forget to have fun and go travelling or visiting other countries every time I have the opportunity.

TO BE CONTINUED

MM- You travelled with your wife recently, and she seems like she is quite cool in crashing wherever, eat whatever, take the longest and most uncomfortable bus rides etc. Someone says you are very lucky as a husband, but what is the real truth? Are women compatible with the hard road, the hard way?

Paolo- Someone said: “if you love me, you do it!”
Well, not all the girls are able to travel like I did. In these years I have had a lot of experiences with female travellers but I lost them on the road because it is not easy to follow the “beast trips”.
Finally I have met Valeria who at last won the reality show “the beast tripmaitrop”
MM- You’ve been surfing for the past 10 and more years. Tell me what the fuck do you find interesting in Southern Bali, for chrissakes!!

Paolo- The island of Bali is for sure one of the most popular surf spots in the world, like Australia, Hawaii and California. It is a place where you can surf everyday, with different kind of waves and numerous spots for beginners and expert surfers. All the surfers go to Bali at least one time in their life!

MM- Tell me at least 5 of the craziest travel experiences you had over the years, to make the starters cry.

Paolo-1° Crossing Australia hitchhiking  (you can’t understand how big is this continent, it is like to go from Lisbon to Moscow) (I do understand Paolo, I crossed half of it just recently… very big…and very boring too, ahahaha ndMM)
2° Working as a fisherman in Australia catching crocodiles and sharks
3° Ending in the middle of a gunfight in Sri Lanka between Tamil Tigers and the military
4° Camping in the jungle in the Andaman Islands, India
5° Sitting on the roof of the train for 15 hours in Mauritania

MM- Sexiest foreign women in the world, and why.

Paolo- Asian girls because are geishas and South American girls because they are hot.

MM- If you could change something in the South East Asian tourist trail, what would it be?

Paolo- I would like to see all of the world, not only South East Asia, with less energy and cars.

MM- Some tips on how to still make quite an adventure of a trip.

Paolo- No planning in advance, never! My best trips were the ones I didn’t know where to go and what to do. I remember a day in New Zealand I was  hitch hiking,  going southbound. When someone stopped at the other side of the road I just decided to head northbound with him! And it was a beautiful trip.

MM- You told me you now want to retire in Italy and try to live in an eco farm, or better a place you will build, maintain and farm yourself to provide for your living needs. This is a very noble, Thoreau-esque idea. Why do you want to retire from the human race, and why deciding for such a radical change?

Paolo – I want to be isolated to be more serene and happy. The human being is going down without arguments.

MM- Tattoos and travel. You are heavily tattooed for good, do u link this to travel in some way?

Paolo- I love tattoos and they are really important for me. I like to meet tattooed people, meet tattoo artists, to go to convention and share this passion with others.

MM- Ultimately, has travelling enriched you in some way, or it just made you realize it’s better to farm the land and shit in a squat toilet like Mongolians do? Do you plan in raising Abruzzese Camels as well?

Paolo- I am working on the Abruzzese Camels mixing the races, but the hunch is still growing on the side and not on the top of the back!
I have made this choice because is simple and satisfying. Day by day people want useless things and hobbies so I want to do a step back and try to live like people used to do in the past.

So, anything I can say now Paolo is, good luck on your project, and hoping that Italy will keep you down for a while, I promise I’ll be willing to stay in your mud and brick house and feast on your vegetables and meat as soon as I’ll come back to visit our Motherland… by then I hope it’ll be possible to ride a normal bred camel, I love doing that

Paolo Iannamico, better known in the travel world as PaoloTripmaitrop, or “viaggiabbestia” is the second person I wanted to interview. His brilliant website Paolotripmaitrop was a source of inspiration and when we finally met in Kuala Lumpur a little over a month ago, I found him to be exactly on my same wave lenght.

Having travelled extensively around Australia and Asia with an adventurous trip of West Africa under his belt too, Paolo is that kind of adventure traveller that you wouldn’t come across easily in Khao San Road cafes or the beaches of Phuket, someone brave enough to take a boat from Thailand to India and hitch hike in the Great Sandy Desert of Australia without a drop of water in times where these kinds of adventure weren’t commercialised all over the internet and easily overtaken by any regular john.

His motto is “the less you spend, the more you travel” and I can just agree 100% with that…

MM- You started travelling in the 90s and kept doing it up to now. What do you think has changed from back then?

Paolo – For sure now the travellers are different because with low cost air tickets everyone can fly. Now travelling is so easy that you don’t need a brain anymore, even the table of your kitchen could leave if he had hands to use to pay money!!

MM- We met once and we agreed there is not a lot to see and discover anymore. What do you hate most about this?

Paolo- I don’t like this because it makes me feel without the enthusiasm and joy of travelling, meeting new people and see new places.

MM- Describe to me the kind of traveller you dislike the most, and why.

Paolo- The travellers that I hate the most are the ones with a guide book, for example Lonely Planet. This kind of travellers think to be real experts just because the guide book
gives them all the information they need: where to eat, where to sleep, what to do, what to see and when to put a finger up their asses. Then I don’t like the arrogant and the stupid who don’t care about the locals and the places.

MM- You have recently been in West Africa, and your comments about your trip apparently raised a chorus of “RACIST!” towards your statements. Please, you can be as racist as you like here, we like intelligent racism.

Paolo- Well, it is not so easy to explain what I felt during my trip in West Africa in a few sentences! I felt like I was a big ATM with legs all the time. I have visited 9 countries and in 7 of these I was really uneasy. These countries are not poor as you can   think talking about Africa, they are not like that absolutely. Most of the people just want your money because you are white and to them this means you are rich. They don’t understand that you are a backpacker not because they don’t know what it is but just because is impossible that a white person can be “poor” or travel on a  low budget. They ask you for money all the time, they follow you for kilometres because of the money. Asking for money is easier than go to work!
I have spoken with several volunteers working there and they all  told me that these people don’t want to learn skills and work because they know that there will always be help and money coming from other countries. I give you an example: I went in a small village where the roads had been built by the European Community and the water system by Japan. Here the people were just sitting under the mango trees waiting for other sponsorships coming from different other parts of the world. When they saw us, they ran to us asking for money, football uniforms and
soft drinks and the funny thing is that all of these guys were well dressed with fashionable sunglasses and fancy  mobile phones…

MM- Tripluca, a “famous” Italian traveller/businessman (ahahaha), gave you the nickname of “Viaggiabbestia”. I am very familiar with punk rock ethics, and “abbestia” basically means a crusty punk, some scum who likes to drink in his own piss while trying to be enough sober to talk about anarchic bullshit. How do you explain your way of traveling?

Paolo- I try to spend less money as possible because I prefer to spend time than money so I travel on the third class or on the roof of the train. I don’t care if I can’t shower for several days and I mostly eat street food (sometimes I eat a proper meal without the company of rats and bugs).

MM- It’s best to be in a boat in the Philippines, or in a train in India, low class?

Paolo- The best? The train in India! On the train more or less you know for how long you have to stay on it and then it is really interesting because the atmosphere is really cool: people cooking, selling food and playing music…

MM- Which are the countries you visited that changed more drastically in the last few years?

Paolo- Laos has changed really drastically. During my first trip in Laos I spent two perfect weeks in a great atmosphere spending only 20 euros, including food, accommodation and transport. I went back this year and I found everything to be really different, high prices and all the places became really touristy. To discover the real face of Laos you have to go beyond the mountains, to be alone with the locals where all the posh travellers don’t go because they cannot find the ac rooms or the comfortable buses.

MM- What do you think of German cyclists that claim they biked their way to Malaysia from Germany, and then tell you they almost lost the bike 5 times when packing it on several Indian trains, Nepali airlines and Thai buses, and then also wear totally gay hair clips like frustrated housewives?

Paolo- He he he, the dear German cyclist, crazy for all the women…I didn’t like him very much. Listening to his “adventures” I understand that he is a gay cyclist around the world. During my trips I have met three real hard core push bikers: Mareike, Tommy and TripLuca.
Mareike and Tommy, both from Germany (and without hair clips), did two big trips: the first from Berlin to New Zealand (two years on the road) and the second from Spain to Togo (one year). But the real man, the real Bartali and Coppi, is TripLuca who did from Venice to Krakow with a city bike.

MM-  What do you think of Fulvio’s fannypacks? Why does he need three and a half?

Paolo- I tried to talk to Fulvio about his fannypacks but I can’t understand why he wants to look like Doraemon. I could understand him if he painted his body with blue and the belly with white!

TO BE CONTINUED

A few months ago I was making pizzas in Australia, one of the many shit jobs I had to collect money while on the road. Darwin has a big Asian community, and very often I was serving and observing them coming into the restaurant: Indonesian women married to Australian men, an Indian doctor who loved pizza very much, Papuan people who totally abandoned the life in the most savage country in the world and, of course, Chinese. My favorite kind. Why? I don’t know. I am just always fascinated by those features, those almond eyes, those movements. And it was quite weird after one year in China, a Malaysian Chinese girlfriend and a basic understanding of their language, see them almost perfectly integrated in the Australian society.Now I’m back in Malaysia, finally, and I’m glad I’m still surrounded by them and by the chaotic mess of sounds, smells and foods I missed so much. I’m no Chinese, but currently I’m living with them, the language I hear in the background without understanding is Cantonese and its variations, the food I eat is mostly Chinese, and the body I lie next to at night is Chinese. The only problem is, I’m white, and no matter if I’ll be able to speak their language one day, put pins in my eyelids to make them look Asian or get a Michael Jackson skin treatment to gain that natural beautiful Asian tone, I’ll never be one of them. Never ever ever. This is the Chinese rule.

The intellectual struggle is beautifully challenging: Kit Yeng has some pre constructed ideas about the white race that encompass the three sides of the Western World, are put in an ideological blender and vomited out like a retarded fetus out of a degenerate womb. In her almond eyes, I’m European (what does this mean, it’s unclear to me), American and Australian, all at the same time. And at the same time, I am none of the aforementioned things, because she’s one of the luckiest ones who got to travel and see and experience, and still has some knowledge and wisdom to discern where she’s right or wrong. In their eyes, we are utterly stupid. Yes, stupid because we don’t do the things they do in the same way they do them. So If I don’t wipe the table using an open tablecloth, instead of clutching it as I like, I represent the whole stupidity expressed by the white race. This is very astonishingly interesting, to me. It makes my brain twitch, my ideas get small like the aforementioned deformed dead babies. And I silently shut up, with patience. Absolute patience.

When later it’s time to outline how they do things in ways that I consider weird or inappropriate, and when confronted in a way they cannot escape or answer in a normal way, the “pression syndrome” starts. And I become an executioner, a sadistic killer that just desires to crush the Chinese and Asian cultures under his black boots’ tips. Like you’d do with a fat, oily cockroach crawling on the floor.  But did you know that a cockroach can survive for 9 days without its head? Kit Yeng, lovely Enthomologist, told me this. So believe me, it’s impossible to kill them, or change their ideas. This is were the relationship challenge starts, and where sometimes I’d like to be able to explain more, and be understood. But it’s not easy at all.

This said, I love the Chinese and I think they are beautifully intelligent people, although I’ll never be tired of saying the difference between Chinese in China, and Chinese in Malaysia is like an abyss. The latter are cleaner, more p0lite and open to a discussion, and probably being used to using English as one of the primary languages, they don’t avoid a conversation just because it’s been led in English. In China, if you don’t speak Chinese, you’ll never get to know them even if they speak the most fluent English. It’s a big difference in terms of style, life and classifications. And this makes me enjoy more those morning breakfasts where I have to eat pork and noodles with my coffee, making me feel like I’m completely ready to accept this different point of view. But will this be accepted by our counterparts?

So far, my final answer is no.

Yes, I know, it’s totally gay to put a picture of yourself with your girlfriend as a post image, but I’m actually very happy to be back home. My second home, whatever it means, this spot in Penang state it’s definitely a welcoming one for me. And I feel at home. Six months of Australian adventures and work, I thought I might have wanted to stay longer but I found out, regardless being a decent country, Australia is not for me. Too easy, too English/Western oriented, too quiet for me. What I mostly missed was Asian chaos and beauty, the cultural differences, my own struggle for understanding, the cruising around on half-broken motorbikes, the insecurity, the fact I try to understand, and I don’t. It’s all beautiful. And she is of course beautiful too, as you can see.Blogging about Australia, I noticed a lot of people have taken my impressions in a way I didn’t like. I am very sick of reading comments on this blog calling me an idiot because  I don’t respect the opportunity that is given to people doing a working holiday visa in Australia. I think I met many people, especially French and Italian, that didn’t have a clear understanding of  how things should be, according to my perspective on the world.  I don’t want to look like the seasoned traveler, nor the cocky arrogant inquisitor, I just tried to express my distrust for a society that exploits all of these people, making them think and feel they are special. You are not. I will miss some aspects of Australia, and of course I’d like to go back and visit the West Coast that I didn’t see, but I reckon I am too much of a misanthropic monkey  to actually enjoy the backpacker world I met in Australia. It’s not fun for me, if it’s fun for you, beautiful, now leave me alone, thanks. I don’t need wet t-shirt contests or beers over beers to be excited and feel my life is more intense. And coming to the nature, yeah, awesome, I agree with that. But it doesn’t pacify me, sorry, I’m a fucked up bastard.

Boarding a plane to Singapore I felt some sort of release, but also a new fear of failing to renew myself, and invent something better, since once again, everything is put on the plate of the scale of fortune. I am not afraid to say I am afraid of the future, of the consequences, but at the same time I am thrilled about the excitement of it all. I found again my love and a place that I like to consider as a second home, now it’s my turn to try to make things happen. I feel tired of shuttling from one bus to the other, from a country to the other, without nothing better to do than taking pictures and look for the next adventure, while munching on local foods. I still have some traveling ideas in mind, but what I miss is the drive to shape up my existence, and make it something different, or more worth. Singapore gave me a quick, as always, glance to the terrific development of Asia, his bustling yet controlled streets, his beautiful Asian nymphs wearing stilettos and miniskirts as it was the only thing left for them to do, its cafes full of people chatting and orderly sipping drinks… a good gateway to South East Asia, coming from the dullness of Australia’s entertainment and nightlife, before the actual uncontrolled chaos, street food, smells, motorbikes, swarms of people, malls, women with veils, Muslims, Chinese, Indians, colors of Malaysia. The more I talk to travelers, the more I overhear this distrust for Malaysia’s beauty and comfort. I feel at a crossroad in this country, for I can get what I am used to have, and I can have much more. And this is where a monkey should live with the ones of its kind, in the jungle that colors of green the small but lush hills  surrounding the coastal areas of Pulau Pinang. A primate needs to be within the tropics, possibly Asian side, because in Darwin you have no monkeys. Unless you consider the white yahoos as such, but I don’t, and I respect the apes much better.

So here I am, with a new mindset, a new life and also a new haircut, ready to try to make ends meet and try to sort out the chaos that has been affecting my soul lately. Because the more I travel, the more I don’t find what I was looking for, and since I am on a permanent vacation more or less everything gets defocused, and I gotta get it focused. It will not be so hard, just give me some time, and as always I’ll come up with something able to surprise you all. Or maybe not…. well, we’ll see. Off to the Hungry Ghost Festival tonight to see it burn, meanwhile I have an headache and I feel like trying to connect different cultures is a tough challenge, so it’s better to quit writing now.