Shocking Revelations

And though words would never do enough, part of me just couldn't bring myself to move them down to second notch. To pack them into the depths of archives by instigating novel thoughts to keep the thriving for change contented. But eventually, everything must move on. Eventually, I'll realize that my slow (or fast) march toward a separate grave at a separate time with not come to a halt because he is past. So I move forward with humor and love and all those things he would have had.

The next story begins weeks ago, before the harsh news emerged from electronic screens worlds apart.

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A combo of a continued bureaucratic nightmare showering flames of havoc down upon us and a not entirely unrelated telephone outage in Iran sent us spiraling into a fit of irrational yet wholly necessary escapism. We calmed ourselves enough not to break anything (a lesson certain Pakistani youth may want to take to heart), and quickly hopped a cab to the airport where we jumped onto the standby list and then into a 747 to Karachi with intentions of bypassing Iran altogether.

We walked onto the tarmac and into the refreshingly humid heat of nighttime in a city 700 miles away geographically, and eons away mentally from where we awoke that morning. Instead of the terror inspired in the author of "Who killed Daniel Pearl?" when he strutted out into the white-face-less Karachi, we instead marvelled at the McDonald's Playplace that dominates the landscape as we emerged from the airport. Where he met only creepy taxi drivers and police officers too-eager to supplement their income by duping white idiots, we met only friendly help as public transportation got us to Saddar Bazaar, even if Jenny had to ride in the segregated hot pink cage up front. We arrived not before three separate conversations of welcome, one with a man who was happily on his way to an telemarketing job outsourced from Michigan.

We wandered the dark littered alleys of Karachi that might inspire dread in the reader, but over us dominated a steady calm - much like everywhere else we've traveled. We saw faces that screamed not of nuclear black markets as Time Warner loves to use for profit, but of those same ultra-friendly faces offering the sort of hopsitality you truly have to experience to understand. This is not "gee, you're not from here? Welcome to Karachi." This is "Oh, you're a guest - let me buy you're meal, and a coke, and a sack of bananas, and perhaps leave my office just to walk you around and help you find a bus ticket." This is humanity truly caring for humanity - or perhaps that's too pure. Nevertheless, it's close.

At 2 am on my first night in the supposedly dangerous city, I took a walk down the street to the juice stand still pumping out fresh liquids squozen from Bananas, Pineapples, Strawberries, Appples... I sat next to two of the sketchiest men I've met. They grilled me. They proved to be the first two men who openly admitted that "NO" they did not like America or Americans. Then, they bought me my juice shook my hand with a smile and rode away on their motorcycle.

In the process of booking our next flight out, we received yet another email from Hamid and were on our way once again in the direction of Iran. We spent a day in hot, humid Karachi looking around at the megacity's Qaid-e-azam (leader of the people = Pakistan's non-communist Ho Chi Minh and, largely, Gandhi's opponent in creating Pakistan) memorials and monuments, etc. and dipped our hands in the Arabian Sea. We eventually bought a night bus ticket to Quetta, just in time to miss the next day's newest strike over stupid cartoons.

In the morning, I went alone to drink tea with a man who wore a still straight brimmed UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees...blah) cap. He had worked in Kandahar with the organization, and described the radical mulahs for whom he has nothing but contempt. Once, they arrived at his military health outpost with a woman in need of an emerrgency C-section, but with not women available to perform the operation (as they'd destroyed all the woman's schools), the husband of many let her die rather than be subjected to the hands of a helpful man. So much for the Taliban of safety and order defended in the streets of Khazakhela.

Also, he warned me not to travel more than 30 km from Quetta, as not even the police travel there for fear of having their vehicles and everything else they have taken from them at the hands of militants. Yet walking down the streets of turbanade Taliban (taliban = graduates of madrasa, or Quranic, schools) only whets my appetite for more interaction. to see more of genuine Balochistan than the urban anomaly of Quetta. After all, this land of 6.5 million people still takes up 44% of the land in this 150 million strong country. AND, along with the tribal areas, seems to cause most of the political problems Pakistan endures. To get out of Quetta and be allowed a glimpse of the people of this turbulent land would be envigorating, doubltessly. Unfortunately, such experiences seem to be left to more daring authors of sometimes crappy books.

Quetta's Iranian consulate did not disappoint as the mystery man behind one way mirrors shouted us to the front of the line and exclaimed, "I hope we can get you a visa TODAY! We LOVE the American People! But only the people..." Hover, the MFA joined up to squash optimismas the necessary fax was somewhere still in Bureaucratic hell. Jenny returned to the hotel to lament in her book.

I wandered through the Kandahari bazaar and turban clad afghans toward the nearby desert mountains. At their base, I find a slew of clay waled enclosures and investigate. Inside the bizarrely partitioned cemeteries are hundreds of graves, mostly nmarked in traditional pakistani style that I've seen. The monds make an excellend photo opp and then I manage to lose the gang of adolescents who picked up my scent. Wary of the crazy Taliban elements that may be lurking in caves on the hillsie, I still manage to convince my imagination that even were they fundamentalist hideouts, I'd probably be warmly welcomed.

Halfway up, I notice another man following my tracks, and no sooner had smiles and welcomes been exchanged than I was carrying his teapot up a class 4 scramble. I sat in the cave mostly wondering at their kindness, and just HOW they were going to imbibe this local goo they mashed around. In the meantime, they continued with the usual "USA very free. Pakistan not free." Which was unusual only that it came from a cave on a hillside in the heart of Balochistan.

Contented finally to be an eyewitness to freebased opium, I took off for the ridgetop and quiet solitude over Quetta. I stopped for another cup of Chai on the way down, and, wholly refreshed at the ironic friendliness and safety of the cave, wander back to town. That night, I got the terrible news of Tim.

We mourned for a day atop a hillside nearby, while a group of stupid kids kicked and pounded our rented cruiser bikes down below. The unceasing help from locals who we'd never met in carrying the bikes and driving us back to town renewed our faith in the humanity of this world.

The next day, the visas were still not ready so we hopped another bus to Karachi. We didn't blink as we got from bus directly to taxi to the airport ticket counter and purchased our exit from Pakistan. A few hours later, we landed in Dubai.

As wqe disembarked from the ariplane onto the Arabian Peninusla, imatges of sandy dunes dissolved into the puked up modernity of the place. Capitalism oozed from the walls and flat screen televisions, from moving walkways and poster fro eTennis tournaments feautring Andre Agassi. The immigrations officer was a stark contrast to the sinny, underfed, under exercised physiques of Asia - this was a man build as an American. He would fitin perfectly in Colorado, his Arabian dress notwithstanding.

As it turned out, Monye oozed from every one of Dubai's pores. A new skyscraper is under construction on nearly every block, and every building in town is exceedingly modern in curves and style - a testament to the recent acquisition of all this weatlh. In the ocean they've built an enormous palm-tree shaped peninsula with 2000 luxury homes on board.

To be thrown into such an onslaught of dolars after 8 montths of Asian poor was altogether disorienting. It was a lesson in just how much the world has to offer for the fortunate few, and how much struggle it provides for the rest (or rather, how much struggle we percieve in the rest, but how much joy comes from it). We spent our day walking, mostly, as the transportation, food, and everything else was out of our budgedt. By the Rolext towers, the Emirates Towers, the Persian Gulf (where, yes, I dipped my hand), by the creekside and over the ferry. We ate some shawarma and, mostly, simply marveled at the unanticipated contrast to Pakistan - to Quetta where we had been just 15 or so hours before.

We also tracked down the cheapest way to Istanbul, which meant that we spent the night sitting on the floor of the Dubai International Airport where a cup of coffee was $4.

At 4:40 am I passed out on an airpplane, with only pbrief intermissions for a surreal airline meal simply in that I could barely keep my eyes open to "enjoy" it but felt that I had to as I couldn't afford to eat the next one and to look out the window at Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Next thing I knew, I was seeing snowy hills just before touching down on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Athens, Greece.

This stop, totally unplanned 24 hours before, excited our emotions and senses - coplete with a bit of culture shock at prices, the fac thtat traffic with rules can be so slow, and all the white faces amongs wiich we weren't singled out, didn't get stared at, and just weren't the spectacle we're used to.

We used our unexpectd opportunity to go to the Acropolis. We stood where Plato and Socrates founded rationality and marveled at the contrast for the resons for the acropolis verses all of the structures in Asia. Divine vs. Man. Sure, Zeus and the greek pantheon emerge, but the parthenon was not for worship so much as for rational governance. Imagining Socrates deep in thought on a sunny day, similar to this one, on one of those grassy hills leading up to the Parthenon was something very surreal. The structure itself, though shrouded in obnoxiuos scaffolds of restoration, was inspiring. It is not as grand, I think, as Angkor today, but the statues in the museum of the Acropolis tell more of what the place used to be 2500 years ago. The constant onsluaght of Olympics, Zues, Parthenon, GREEKS ever since elementary school gave way to present. The photos of Greece were ALWAYS of the Parthenon, and now I've sood there. I've fel thte ground where deemocracy took root, where Zeus played Shiva's role. I jmped thoruhg all the textbook bullshit and laid eyes on the PARTHENON.

We lost all control of ourselves and drank wine and cheese in history's shadow, while a very Rick Steves-esque train rolled by nearby. Afer one last ray of sunshine in Omonia square, we jumped the train back to the airport, whose tracks lacked the feces and trash of its Asian counterparts. We hoppedanother plane, and landed in Istanbul. The Middle East, Supposedly.

Though most people in Istanbul share their Asian counterparts' lack of ability to listen, the similarities stop there. I think most of the modern culture is epitomized in the unnecessarily pointy shoes one man wore when he hopped on the tram with us - Fasion, style, self-indulgence, ease. The things money affords us, all here, in Turkey. I feel the gradual shift via a slow overland journey through Iran would have been nicer on my body and mind, but I had little choice. So as I walk down clean cobbled streets past the Four Seasons Hotel and into a land where a meal costs 10 bucks again, I almost want to puke. My body can't handle the contradictions, the change. I never expected culture shock to happen in Turkey, 8 months into the unfamiliar.

There, travelers who believed that Pakistan was a terribly dangerous place reminded me that most travelers don't go to Pakistan either - that the misconceptions I knew I'd encounter back home have emerged early. Women with suitcases so large they can't carry them down the stairs of the hostel, and tourists here for short week or two stays remind of how easy this destination seems. Meanwhile, the comfort of Tomatoes and Feta while gazing over the Marmara Sea seems a sacrilege against the discomfort of Travel. This isn't vacation, after all.

But then again, this vacation seems less than bliss so far. Somewhere between the Parthenon and the "blue" mosque I got lost in apathay. No doubt it's some connection to Tim - to the realization that the people in Kashmir wouldn't give a shit that my good friend is gone - ALL of their good friends, brothers, sisters, mothers are gone too. I am not special.

But that overwhelming apathy was heinous. The rows of touristy restaurants with punk bastards who are, after all, just doing their jobs hasseling me to by their shit and look at their Friggin' menus which are prominently on display already. And the guy at the Blue mosque who took it upon himself to shamelessly try to sell us overpriced crap carpets. Idiot. And to boot, he was one of those who makes ME feel bad for NOT buying one. "How am I going to make a living?" Stupid guy. The whole experience of the gorgeous ottoman blue mosque is tainted because of that guy. Not to mention the onslaught of weird men trying to "buy me beers" in the typical local way of duping tourists out of money. Argh.

I thnk what bugged me most on that day was the stem of culture shock that the place is so Western and yet so not. That the clean streets and clean air haven't wiped away the obnoxious touts or bargaining bullshit. That the lack of headscarves doesn't mean a lack of orthodoxy - the guy at the blue mosque got VERY upset because a man nearby prayed in the wrong direction. And it seems almost like all that crap that's supposed to be limited to Bassackwards societies in Asia are creeping in on my world. Turkey and the West - where spontaneous order rules - isn't supposed to be an existence to endure like the one in Asia.

After a few days of wandering ottoman streets, drinking Turkish Coffee and terrible Efes Beer (which was nonetheless welcome after our Pakistani dryness), and marveling at the gorgeous mosques whose congregations are now indoors and whose rooves are now domed, we caught a ferry over the Bosphorous canal. We hopped a bus and then, on the outskirts of this megacity, got back to my roots with thumbs in the air. The first trucker to stop took us all the way to Cappadoccia, and even bought us dinner on the way. Unfortunately, it was liver and onions and I almost puked it all up.

We slept the night in the cab of his truck, and awoke just in time to see the sunrise over a perfectly formed snowy volcanic cone. The colors welcomed us to the new unknown, as we sat again on the roadside with thumbs raised for the last few kilometers to Goreme.

You would not believe what happened that day.

The next day I woke up with the type of hangover that has me swearing off alcohol for all of eternity. The beating headache, the inability to function, the desire to do nothing but sleep. So I slept. I slept most of the day away, then watched the sunset from a hilltop nearby and called it good.

Finally, on day 3, we wandered into the fairy tale surroundings. In this would be canyonlands, the sandstone spires and cliffsides were turned to cave dwellings and churches for christans during Roman times. Papa Smerf lurks around every corner, as this unworldly maze of cave abodes feels like pure fiction. Entire cities built of nothing but sandstone caves.

The silence, too, was welcomed to reflect on the next destination. And after a few phone calls home, I decided to head south for my own reasons. We threw thumbs to the air once again, and while all the way to Antakya once again my mind would not release thoughts of Tim and of my own mourning, I stuck with my decision.

In the morning, we unwisely skipped breakfast and ignored the bus driver's refusals to take us to the border as we had no visas by hitching once more. Eventually, we sat in a room with a uniformed man somewhat taken aback that stupid Americans would arrive at his post without visas and against all regulations. However, he decided to let this businessman and hospital worker who were staying at the Sheraton in Damascus through. Moreover, he charged us 17 bucks - better than the 120 we were going to pay had things worked out at the embassy in Pakistan. Lesson learned: Disobey and you'll be rewarded.

Hitched again, with an immigrant Brit back to survey the textile mills. We wove our way through dark green hills that were, mysteriously, still not the desert dunes into which all of the middle east had been sucked in my mind. Those rocky hillsides seemd to be pushing that last inch up above us, struggling to have independent form from that around them as though they were breaking the rules by going higher. Those hills through their mysterious nature made me feel like I was at the top of the world, and like, with the help of a wholly improbable day, I was nowhere near Syria.

Nevertheless, we arrive in Aleppo wholly refreshed. The Falafel and streetfood is, well, still street food. But the rush of humanity in the streets, the friendly smiles that want nothing but smiles in return, and even the incessantly honking horns that beckon as a continuous conversation between drivers are a great relief (believe it) after the quiet, lonely, empiness of money grabbers in Turkey.

And so here we are, still moving...though sometimes reluctantly. In Syria.