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__________
travel passages
topic
__________
finding the home within out there
traveling inwards
My soles brought me places, but immersion taught me places, taught me people and lives.
ENORMOUSLY ELUSIVE
The more water the falls carry, the less you see them. The less water the falls carry, the more you see them disappear. Rainy season, dry season – take your pick between misty veils or bare walls; it’s hard to win with Victoria Falls.
Victoria Falls / Zambia · 2017
Victoria Falls / Zambia · 2017
20 YEARS AFTER
Tucked away in-between Cape Town’s plush waterfront and Stellenbosch’s fine wineries, the Cape Flats aren’t exactly glamorous. That’s why they are easily overlooked by tourists even though their ample expanse makes them hard to miss. Everybody had hyped up South Africa and Cape Town as heaven on earth, but nobody had mentioned the abysmal disparity. I was taken aback by how segregated the country still was, 20 years after apartheid. The institutionalized oppression had left societal trenches so deep that they undermined social and racial equity at every step. There is plenty of joy in the townships, no doubt; but people’s happiness is up against vast inherited sufferings and struggles, which can overshadow the most beautiful smile with a frown.
Cape Flats / South Africa · 2017
Cape Flats / South Africa · 2017
HOSTEL CREATURE
Hostels are anthropological petri dishes, in which all sorts of characters and stories mingle. Sure, many conversations stay at a superficial level along the lines of “where you from mate, sick dude, how long have you been traveling, where you headed?” But some people meet on the same wavelength and dive a little deeper, to more profound topics and even to the depths where lifelong friendships are molded. And then there are the occasional oddballs, refreshing palate cleansers with quirky demeanors and twisted plots. Like the kind of guy entering a dorm in Bishkek late at night with a stern face while insinuating something about a committed murder, but being all jovial and no longer hangry after a midnight snack, now casually clarifying that the murder victim was actually him, killed by a society that had not prevented his near starvation leading to strokes and nerve damage, and alleging that some Balinese villagers worship him and his wife as reincarnations of Hindu gods, before putting on his PJs and a Kermit sleeping mask.
Bishkek / Kyrgyzstan · 2018
Bishkek / Kyrgyzstan · 2018
TRRROIA
It sounded something like “Trrroia” when my Turkish bunk bed neighbor in Istanbul gave me a travel suggestion. Our conversations were pleasant, but never made it too far past smiles and the mutual understanding of Raki and cigarettes; right now, I had no clue what he was saying, but it was evident by his incomprehension of my incomprehension that “Trrroia" was of some significance. When it dawned on me, he had rewritten history in my mind with only one unintelligible word: Troy was no longer a faint myth of the Iliad, but an actual, firm place and its ruins were just waiting for me to be their witness. I found the Hollywood horsie parked along the seafront of nearby Canakkale – maybe somebody should look that gift horse in the mouth.
Canakkale / Turkey · 2015
Canakkale / Turkey · 2015
SWIM ACROSS THE BRIDGE
If you look close enough you might find that the fine line between imagination and reality is really a bridge. It is neatly inevitable that by the time you’re reading this your hasty eyes have already jumped to the picture and with it to conclusions. The journey has begun. Your eyes carried you away to a Guatemalan dreamscape by the Mayan name of Semuc Champey. They hypnotized you with the tale of turquoise water dividing the jungle and lured you from reality’s solid bank into imagination’s fluid realm. For things aren’t what they seem. The paradoxical title, reminiscent of a surreal dream sequence at first, is actually the signpost to reality here. Follow it and you will see what you’re actually looking at: a bridge. Naturally formed from limestone, it spans 300m wide across the ferociously raging Cahabón River underneath, while shallow pools sit placidly atop. Only by imagining the river, which remains forever tucked away from your eyes, you can see the bridge and swim across it to reality’s bank.
Semuc Champey / Guatemala · 2014
Semuc Champey / Guatemala · 2014
CAPITAL CATAPULT
A trade hub thanks to the canal, a financial center sheltered by a tax haven, a duty free zone second only to Hong Kong, Panama City is a money machine, an economic engine, a wealth generator. For some. Looking at the ivory towers from across the bay you will find that the capital catapults only a few to skyline heights, while most are left behind.
Panama City / Panama · 2014
Panama City / Panama · 2014
SPOTTING GIANTS
You’d think the world’s biggest fish is hard to overlook, but then again, the ocean isn’t exactly a bathtub. To spot the chubby needle in this liquid haystack is an art that takes ample practice and ampler patience. As the only place in the Philippines where the interaction with whale sharks in governed by a tight framework of regulations, Donsol has brought forth a multitude of these artists. Day in day out, they climb the mast and scan the sea, while a group of goofy-looking tourists in snorkel gear sits on deck and keenly awaits the signal to hop in. While more popular whale shark hot spots like Oslob lure the animals with bait and don’t striktly enforce no-touch policies, the interaction in Donsol is ecologically responsible. Sightings aren’t guaranteed, but the encounter is natural when it happens and all the more magnificent.
Donsol / Philippines · 2015
Donsol / Philippines · 2015
KINDNESS AMONG STRANGERS
One of my favorite human gestures are random acts of kindness among strangers. I’ve witnessed and experienced many good deeds over the years, and often the tiniest action is the purest and can yield the deepest appreciation and heartiest response. Such acts are not just about giving, helping, or being selfless. It could be a fleeting smile between elevator doors; or saying thanks to your bus driver; or these guys here asking me to take their picture and share their jovial microcosmic instant, while millions around us surged through the palpitating heart of Manila for the Black Nazarene celebration.
Manila / Philippines · 2015
Manila / Philippines · 2015
EXPENSIVE POVERTY
What a sinister paradox: if you belong to the 35 % of Limeños, who live in the barrios pobres of Peru’s capital, you pay up to 10 times more for water than wealthier residents, according to Oxfam estimates. Water, filling the pools of affluent Miraflores abundantly, is a scarce commodity in next door San Juan de Miraflores, where squatter settlements crawl up muddy hills. Without plumbing, they depend on costly water truck deliveries that don’t make it up the slopes. This translates to additional labor and costs for those living higher up. Despite an infamous perpetual winter drizzle, it almost never rains in Lima, which undermines any efforts to harvest rainwater. And as though the irony wasn’t bitter enough up till here, the occasional rain comes down as torrential downpours, washing out these very hills and demolishing the brittle existences of those who dwell there.
Lima / Peru · 2013
Lima / Peru · 2013
AF
Come sunshine or rain, dry or wet season – for better or worse, the tropics keep an almost constant solar angle throughout the year, making for eternal warmth. In the Köppen–Geiger climate classification this warrants an A, not for the best, but the warmest climate. Kuala Lumpur falls into the subcategory Af – tropical rainforest climate with no distinct dry season, which means the sun and the sky brew hot and humid weather all year round, serving almost daily rainfalls. Cloudbursts come without much of a heads up and when it rains, it rains.
Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia · 2015
Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia · 2015
4714 MONKEY
And just like the drizzle, a passenger of the February mist, the people kept pouring in by the busloads until the Great Wall was flooded. They all had come to usher in the New Year – 4714, year of the monkey – but they had come in peace, elbowless and hasteless, moving together in collective harmony like one enormous serpentine organism.
Badaling / China · 2016
Badaling / China · 2016
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Austerity is a narrow gateway. Most material possessions are too bulky to fit through. The flood of overindulgence is too wide to pass it whole. Merely a humble iota of societal diversions makes it to the other side and accompanies the Buddhist monk on his path to raw consciousness and spiritual enlightenment. Only after shaving off all distractions delivered by the senses, the innermost mind is sharpened into necessary focus for the journey inwards. But concentration goes only as far as the belly is full. The blossoming mind can’t escape its organic roots. And so the monk’s quest is nourished by the alms giving lay people, who in return feed off good Karma and the Buddhist teachings. A mutual exchange of food for thought.
Luang Prabang / Laos · 2015
Luang Prabang / Laos · 2015
SALASAKA
And so the months passed by as the place kept me. Its spell felt like deliberate inevitability to me, some sort of circumstantial fate. I was stranded in a subtle paradise. Salasaka. Melding yesterday and tomorrow today, the Salasakans knew something that was either long forgotten or far from discovery elsewhere. Their wisdom was intricate, their lifestyle most graceful. Everything was deeply rooted in bygone centuries, in the land, in Pacha Mama, but change was harvested everywhere. Salasaka was not a village outside the world or inside a vacuum. It was right there, where it seemed to belong, in a limbo between eras. Holding on to ancient knowledge while embracing the next generation’s wit, the indigenous life lingered beautifully and without haste on tomorrow’s verge.
Salasaka / Ecuador · 2012
Salasaka / Ecuador · 2012
PIECE
Oh Santorini sun, fiery minx, you set like no other; all dressed in amorous promises, you lean in to kiss the horizon and our voluptuous human longing for romance becomes so tangible. But, alas, the faster you near the embrace, the more passion becomes skirmish. To hell with loving surrender, everybody doesn’t want peace; a piece is what we crave! We miss gentle caresses down here, in this crossfire of sharp elbows and hectic shutter shot staccatos; but none of us can afford time or space for sentiments while demanding our rightful peek. Like the tide below, the second wave of people has arrived to replace the first; yet, the flesh pours in erratically, unlike the smoothly transitioning surf. We are all here, now, but not in the moment and not together. Oh Santorini sun, you lured us with union, but all you gave was divide. Now you wander west to seduce another sorry lot of naïve fools, leaving us in the dark.
Oía, Santorini / Greece · 2017
Oía, Santorini / Greece · 2017
REV
"Revving the engine is enough to lure them," explained our captain. Then he fed them anyway. Right off Belize's Caye Caulker, nurse sharks live alongside stingrays, eagle rays, manatees and other neighbors in an oceanic vicinity known as Shark Ray Alley. Local boat operators use bait in preparation of a touristic snorkel encounter with the harmless animals in the shallow and crystalline Caribbean waters. The dubious feeding practice has conditioned the sharks to line up in front of the boats by the mere sound of an outboard and raises the question of how this unnatural dependence and behavior will affect the animals in the long run.
Caye Caulker / Belize · 2014
Caye Caulker / Belize · 2014
ORCHESTRATED CHAOS
Twisting your feet and senses and grasp until you’re mad with hues and scents and dichotomies, the medina of Fes is an orchestrated chaos, underneath, if you read chaos. You shouldn’t though.
Fez / Morocco · 2016
Fez / Morocco · 2016
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