tripsntrix 2009
my intention is to make use of this past year like a fishing pond. here i'm going fishing for unparalleled hilarity,
frivolity, glitter and spunk that accompanied me through the year and plug it in here. to concoct a serpentine of
a tale of a certainly not so straight-forward year. more fun than writing straight forward narrative. 
but i must tell you that my one fix plan is to talk about
my last trip in eastern turkey and iraq in october. but i'll 
jump around
jump
jump
JUMP!
i'll start with the end. it's not what i always do. in fact i was hoping to start
in the middle, but now the end has presented itself as the correct thing to do.
that way i can paint the picture of my surroundings, as i extend brush strokes
to infinite swaths of space, to the farest reaches of non-here.
currently there are people who are watching an american football game in a silly city in a place called california. i am near to the end of a trip to the far western reach of the northern civilization.
i came here on account of my brother getting married, which happened in Los Angeles on the second of january.
put on my best for the occasion
anyways, i've had lots of fun with my family,
my sisters and brother and parents and cousins
and uncles and aunts and grandmother: christmas, new years, bachelor party, wedding, and now finita la comedia: some days in the bay area and home sweet rome. i mean budapest.
some fun we had when our Budapest Korzo group
put on the "Zebrajt" mock race across Rakoczi ut, 
as a demonstration for longer green lights on the
pedestrian crosswalk while at the same time 
calling for a more pedestrian-friendly city
video here http://www.kulturpart.hu/mozgopart/17107/tuleloshow_forog_a_rakoczi_uton
some great fun i had in the fall, my first trip out to
the south-eastern part of turkey and the northern 
part of iraq.
mesopotamia 
social forum
i went to the town of diyarbakir in eastern turkey to
visit the social forum, first ever in that region, and 
focusing especially on kurdish issues. it was great to
meet idealist-minded and activist-oriented kurds, turks, people from all around the middle east and from europe.

i could learn about dam issues in eastern turkey, women's movement, peace and democracy aspirations, and even see something as crazy as this
but this was fun too
and i followed along on the women's march
and i befriended the locals. cagri, on the right, took me in, once the forum was over
and local sights, in this case an armenian church 
remains with future model talent adorning a western
wing altar

no photoshopping i swear!
hasankeyf
an ancient town perched on the tigris river
threatened by a planned dam. damn plan.
the city would be submerged by water
people would be displaced
animals and wildlife would also be affected
.... so i wrote an article about it for the "green 
horizon" and could tour the town with a 
journalist's hat on
if you're interested in a particularly sad story :( read on
i was meant to arrive in hasankeyf one day earlier, but 
because of a train delay (i was on time!) i finally could
not take the train that i had hoped to, and i eventually
only travelled there one day later. meanwhile, the famous
kurdish singer Ajnur and the director Fatih Akin were 
there, hosted by my own host, the anti-dam campaign
coordinator (celebrities have been supporting the cause)
according to my host, they had quite a party that night...
if you are interested in the dam
article, it is here: www.greenhorizon-online.com/index.php/Insight/backed-up.html
while at the forum, i met two belgians travelling in a moving
house. a moving house on wheels. at the end of the forum, 
before parting ways, we agreed to meet on a given day at a 
given time, in the Turkish border town to I..r..a..q
i have been known to enjoy hopping borders. i could
not let this one get away from me.........
thus one night at midnight, we crossed over into the "Kurdish region of Iraq"
after sleeping in the moving house on wheels, when we woke up, this is what we did:
it was sooo refreshing! and a great way to start a 5-
day trip into iraq. also on the first day, i could delight 
in the most tasty fruit smoothy i've ever had....
this was breakfast: 
it was striking to note that we were
in a different country. even the tea had spices that turkish teas don't have. the 
architecture was different. people just as
friendly. more middle-eastern....

with my new belgian friends we went up the mountains, and easily made friends with the entire
town of amadia: 
There is no such thing as an exhaustive travel narrative. "then i went
to the bathroom. then i paid the bill..." ehm, let's just hope that i
leave those vacuous details out and get straight pointedly to the
rigamarole.

truth being, i didn't pay so many bills, because i was at a rainbow
gathering. at most, i was putting some moolah into the magic hat.

there is, however such a thing as chronological travel narrative.
however, i'll be having none of it.

we find ourselves downcreek of the lower rainbow encampment, smack dab
in paradise. i thought i had jumped into one of these postcard "wish
you were here" type beckoning lush landscapes: in the small gravity
gathering spot of a narrow valley, bitsy cliffs and rocks with lovely
waterfalls and pools. sun smiling, dips into the water heavenly
refreshing. barefoot walks over the rocks massaging the cracks of my
toes. green foliage all about, shady leafy paradise.

i believe that one defining aspect of paradise is its quietness. lack
of everyday noise. my own apartment on hernad u. in budapest would be
closer to paradise without all the rubber-road and the voice-organ
noise. but that's getting off the subject.

if i aimed to emulate a Barthian post-mod narrative, but i kicked it
off right in blooming paradise, of all places, then the story must go
downhill from here.

actually up. for as we ambered back up from paradise to the camp area,
refreshed and ready for the next thing, we slipped in - in time to
join in the food circle. Iranians and Israelis, Turks and Magyars, and
the rest of humanity present, come to hold hands, utter forth the
"circle circling, we are circling" family unity mantra. add perhaps
another element or two, such as a hand or cheek-kiss approximation of
chinese whispers, all part of the communal mealtime ritual.

Rainbow is all about sharing. Sharing work, sharing fun. Even sharing
on a bushy nob a secret beer sipping moment - from a can brought from
Babylon, ie the last shop visited in civilization before arriving to
the mountains above Fethiye. haide, I hope none of my rainbow-purist
readers of this rainbow-account will be angry with me, for after all,
alcohol is a forbidden element on the other side of the rainbow.

But what were we to do? Our last contact with the nonrainbow was a
tee-totalling taxi driver, who refused the malty gift, after visibly
being taxed by our extensive expedition through the backwoods of
Arpacik, already the last ostensible outpost of civilization. And then
leaving us...

...at the beginning of our way in. our way into the thicket. to our
destination. to the start of this tale. but where did we come from?
and where are we going? and who are we? oh, yes, i almost forgot. i am
magic lamp. and meet my travel companion adlesome adipharious.

we trekked by train (the Midnight Expressless) from Budapest to
Istanbul. After what seemed like a monthlong trek, we took a breather
on the Boshphorous, mostly Sultanahmet, clammy handling of disposable
and eventually disposed of cameras, dilly-dallied over to Beyoglu, and
joined in an open-mike rapfest in a dilapidated building in the shadow
of the Galata tower. Swarming with stylish Turkish delights - youth
gone wild. *pretty* and wild, as i side-noted to adlesome.

Another midnight train ride, this time to Afyonkarahisar, an old
Seljuk and later Opium center in Western Anatolia. A delightful
intermission on the way to Rainbow. Delight to be had in surmising and
succumbing to the serpentine streets of the old town, and just the
same, frolicking in a fancy modern playground right there on the the
antique hillside, just south of the cliffside fortress. So modern a
playground that a website was displayed on the equipment. Adlesome
happily took note of the url, although later reported that the site
wasn't working.

After having slightly backtracked on my promise not to include the
minute details, and likewise turning this into an awfully
straightforward type o' narrative, please abide with me while i
digress. purposefully digress. lest it be said that i am a digressless
creature! A digressless creature on an expressless journey!

Ok, that was just to remain technically true to my predetermined
barthian backbone. Onwards to Fethiye. We arrived to this
Mediterranean town after dark and after all the easy ways up to to
Arpacik, the afore-mentioned last outpost. So we matched ourselves up
with the afore-mentioned taxi driver. As it was a long way out of
civilization, and our taxi driver began to demonstrate visible signs
of wishing to direct his taxi as quickly as possible back to
civilization, here i would like to put in a special note of thanks to
adlesome for sustaining the late stages of the bumpy ride with her
boisterous banter and befriending the man behind the wheel as we
traversed terra incognita.

Here comes the lost in the funhouse part. We hit Arpacik, a local
yokel climbs into our taxi, and sets us on the right path leading to
rainbow. It is after ten at night, and when we exit the taxi, and are
told to just go straight, and in twenty minutes we will arrive at the
camp. just go straight. The carlights depart and my flashlight turns
on. We go straight. After not even twenty minutes, the road comes to a
dead stop. my flashlight ransacks all the cracks of the dead stop.
"it's a dead stop".  it's a hansel and gretel moment. instead of
breadcrumbs we struck it lucky with a near full moon. we trudged
straight up a slope to reach high ground, pitched a tent between some
wood piles, fought bravely against a a tent-tilting wind, and after a
few creative rock-shaped solutions applied, hit the proverbial hay.

Next day we made it to rainbow and everyone lived happily ever after.
Speaking of happy, some of my happiest moments were laying on my back
and being bedazzled by a starry night sky, about three thousand times
more dazzling than my light-polluted cityscape night sky ever gives me
the chance to indulge in. then there was a happy random run-in with my
hungarian acquaintances in istanbul on another day. there was a happy
moment when i dug my fork into sutlac (type of rice pudding). the next
happy moment was when i moved my sutlaced fork into the realm of my
taste buds. and the next happy moment..... well if i receive enough
encouragement from my readers, i might consider writing a book titled
"The happy Sutlac eater". or i might pose for a painting with such a
title.

I was also happy, when by the time of my imminent departure from
rainbow, instead of dealing with Arpacik again, i just walked off to
the sea (addlesome had by then already saddled her horse back to
civilization to check out the playground maker's website). We could
see the sea from the rainbow country. It beckoned and it glistened, it
spoke of refreshment in a hot climate. It spoke of Lewis and Clarke.
It spoke of exquisite destination. 22 kilometers if you do it right.

It spoke of an all day adventure, that had me brave a hot, stony road
with my humble city shoes, wind up on the wrong track for two hours,
and despair of ever returning to civilization. Yet, i had a lemon
moment: Quite literally, at the place where I was most off track,
still high up in the mountains, i just happened upon a merry stream,
and then a lemon tree orchard. I plucked lemons from the tree, suckled
their refreshing juice in my dry mouth and thought of Sinbad's second
voyage. ecstatic and acidic, i headed back and found my way, continued
on and eventually, yes eventually reached the hoped-for land. Sea,
soft-drink and sun. back to civilization. back to chocolate, back to
beer, back to babylon.

Baylon with mighty tasty Sutlaces.
for my summer trip to the rainbow gathering in turkey, i packed no such thing as a camera.
here is my mental imaging technology, wrapped in convoluted non-linear prose form.
if it doesn't float your boat, keep hitting next till you get to the next section....