Last travel update from Florida USA

hello everyone!
It has been a very long time now since the last update. I sometimes question if anyone cares about my travels or my search for enlightenment or if I am just writing these letters for my own satisfaction. As I looked deeply into this question, I realized, I was always writing these letters for my own satisfaction! I suppose one could say I have been sharing my travel diary with everyone. Sharing is good so here we go:
First I feel like I want to vent a little anger. I arrived here in Florida on 6 October 2011 to assist my father to care for my mother who was gravelly ill with the lung cancer.
She smoked cigarettes for 60 years and was convinced there was no scientific proof that cigarettes caused cancer, she was also convinced that marijuana leads to heroin addiction. She passed from the material world to the spiritual on December 12. I am still here hanging out with my father. We have always been good friends and it is a pleasure to be with him.
We just got back from a road trip here in America. We drove his car to North Carolina ( about 1,100 kilometers or 800 miles) and spent 6 days visiting some of my dearest friends from my childhood. We were warmly received and we had a great time.
Driving in America is very scary. One must constantly be on the lookout for the "bankruptcy" police. The government (local and federal) , here are more or less bankrupt. Out of money and deeply in debt. Unable to pay their bills or even their own salaries.
Part of the plan to fix this madness is to pay cops $100,000 per year and post speed limits everywhere that are below the speed one would reasonably expect anyone to operate their car at. The result is that IF you drive at the posted limit, everyone passes you and you greatly anger the other drivers.
One spends as much time looking in your rear view mirror as you do driving because the police are always giving people fines for driving too fast! This way the cops justify their salaries and the bankrupt government finances itself!
The whole deal here with the hospice and the medicines and the pains my mother went through, as a result of her being tricked by the government (we have the best health care system in the world, what you really have to worry about is the Taliban, thats what will kill you!) and the cigarette companies (tobacco farmers are subsidized by the government , cigarette companies who claim their product is not addictive and MAY NOT cause illness as there has not been enough research to draw conclusions) , and most especially as a result of her own foolishness and weakness (inability to put down the monkey), was very depressing.
I found it all but impossible to be quiet, to meditate, to feel good or happy. I felt weak, fearful,depressed, anxious and impotent. Watching and waiting for your mother to die is not a pleasant experience! Nothing I could do but try to comfort my poor old mom.
Too bad nobody from hollywood has ever had the idea of a reality show. I almost wished that there were cameras here to illustrate to the fools who smoke what they are buying from the tobacco merchants...Now to move on...
This coming Monday, 16 January, I have a ticket to go to Ecuador. I have a new albeit temporary travelling mate: My dear old Father (he'll be 86 in April) is going with me!
We will go together to Vilcabamba. He will stay for a couple of weeks and then he will return here to Babylon without me. I am very glad that he will come with me. He has an opinion about the rest of the world, (the world outside USA) based on the "news and facts" presented to him by the American mass media.
Me? Well, I just do not know. I will try to go through the paperwork necessary to obtain a resident visa. I loathe speaking to lawyers or having anything to do with any governments. Yet, to accomplish my aim, I must employ an attorney and beg the government to let me stay. This is anathema to me.
I will try however to get it all done and then I am going to live with the lovely and talented Estelita. She loves me and I love her. Sadly, I am who I am, and everytime in the past, I have tried to live with a woman I loved it has ended in disaster. Still they tell me that past performance is no guarantee of future returns...So i will try.
As for staying in one place...well, I love Vilcabamba more than any other place I have stayed. I have stayed in many wonderful places and would seriously consider living in about a dozen of them but Estelita is the "tie breaker". I miss her a lot and want to be with her and so, and so, and so it goes.
I look at my back pack, my life in a canvas sack, and the thought of strapping it on my back and getting on the road again makes me so joyous I feel like I will burst, like a pupppy running in circles and sneezing with joy!
Will I stay "forever" In Vilcabamba? Will I be able and content to stop my travels? There are still so many places I want to go to that I have not yet been and many places in my heart, I hold so dear and wish to return to, I can only truthfully say I do not know the answer.
I know that I do not need to travel to continue my search for enlightenment. I have read enough. I have been to enough classes. I have met enough wise men and women who have taught me enough. I can stay in one place and do the essential self observation, and come to soul consciousness anywhere I am. I know for sure that I am.
I am that I am. I will begin again and continue to write these updates. I think they will start to take on more of a theme based on my inner journey than the external movements of my carcass. Below as usual are a few quotes from people I admire and whom have in their way, have helped me to find my "self"
Peace and love, Blessings and Light,
Robert
"Human beings are the only thing in nature that needs correction" Rabbi Michael Laitman

"When one is alone, totally alone, neither belonging to any family, though one may have a family, nor belonging to any nation, to any culture, to any particular commitment, there is the sense of being an outsider, outsider to every form of thought, action, family, nation. And it is only the one who is completely alone who is innocent. It is this innocency that frees the mind from sorrow." - J. Krishnamurti

" Humanity is the earth’s nerve-endings through which planetary vibrations are received for transmission." Gurdjieff

travel update from Babylon

Hello Everyone,

I want to thank those of you who have written to express concern over not hearing from me for such a long time. When I wrote last i was in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. It is said that Nepal gets its name from "Never Ending Peace And Love". I can see how the rumor got started. I really really enjoyed my stay in this fine country. Oh by the way the day after the last update, I did go out on elephant safari and I did see the rare and endagered one horn rhinocerous. The legendary unicorn of Asia.

That evening, I got word from my father that my mother was gravely ill and He wanted me to return to Florida (Babylon) USA and help him take care of her. She was a cigarette smoker for 60 years. She is suffering from fourth stage agressive lung cancer and her prognosis is very bleak indeed.

I will remain here in Florida as a care giver for as long as I am needed or until I totally freak out! I do not love it here. But I feel that this is the right thing to do and really from a moral point of view I feel like there is simply no other option. To put one's self in an uncomfortable place, or position, or especially into the company of unpleasant people for the sake of another or some other moral cause, is what Mr. Gurdjieff used to call "intentional suffering and conscious labor", the keys to enlightenment!

I have never before been in any kind of "hospice" situation, so this is all new for me. I would sure love to hear from anyone out there who has gone through this kind of thing with a mother father or some other loved one. I feel this is a time of spiritual growth for me and I am making the best of it. I am trying to ease my mothers passing into the next "World". Just trying to make her comfortable, cook her favorite foods, hold her hand and bake her brownies...

There will be few updatges until I begin travelling again. You can all check the blog

www.robertstravels.blogspot.com

and I will probably be making some occasional posts. Here then are a few quotes to say so long with.

Peace and love,

Robert

" We are sheep kept to provide wool for our masters who feed us and keep us as slaves of illusion. But we have a chance of escape and our masters are anxious to help us, but we like being sheep. It is comfortable." Gurdjieff

"I do not believe making money in order to consume goods is mankind's sole purpose on this planet. If you're wondering what I believe our purpose on this planet is, I'll give you a hint. It has to do with creating and sharing." Bill Hicks

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." Gilbert K. Chesterton

travel update from Nepal

Namaste!
I am going t write two updates within a few days of each other because I have not written in a while and there is a lot to cover. This first update will be the traveling adventure part and the next one will be the view from the spirit trail.
So there I was in Kunming china. I became buddies with Dror an Israeli former officer in army intelligence, and we were room mating and discovered we had the same airplane to go to Kathmandu together. We would share a taxi.
Everything went smooth until we got to Kathmandu. Drors credit card would not work at the airport. We finally disentangled money issues and met with the management of Jet Airways so I could be sure that I would not need a visa to change planes in India on my way to Sri Lanka.
So I finally arrived in Kathmandu and found my guest house. got into my room, nice room very big but they had no small rooms left so even though I booked a single I got a triple! Got settled in and then went for a walk about.
The tourist neighborhood, the back packer ghetto is called Thamel. My hotel was just outside this area but easy and close to walk into. Quiet at night yet close to all the "action". I went out exploring and found just what I was looking for. TOTAL CHAOS! the sheer madness of "exotic Asia" Finally, I was beyond the reach of globalization! Finally I am out of New Jersey!
So within an hour I had eaten an amazing " Veg Tali" lunch and obtained something local and fantastic to put into my pipe and went back to my room with a new box of Nga Champa incense, and a potato to sit on the couch with me!!
I passed a most pleasant week in Kathmandu. Stayed the whole time in Mountain Peace guest house and had No complaints at all. As good of a $3.50 USD room as anyone could ask for! As for Kathmandu, well all I can say is it is crowded, dirty, chaotic, confusing, mad, non sensible, as cheap as dirt, and the food is pretty good. Who could ask for anything more?
After a week, I took an early bus to Pokhara. famous for its beautiful lake and incomparable views of the mighty Annapurna range of the Himalaya mountains! I stayed there for a week to, quietly walking around the lake, doing some strolling in the old village and reading Tao De Ching, meditating and smoking the Kathmandu hash during lulls in my otherwise exhausting schedule!
After seeing photos of the views in Pokhara I was really excited to go. But unfortunately for me, the sky was almost always clouded and overcast while I was there. Nepal is experiencing a late monsoon season this year and it is still a lot of rain. So I did get to see some nice snow capped Himalayan peaks but not what I as expecting. One f the rare occasions of my travels where I have been somewhat disappointed. Perhaps it is an omen. What can the travel gods be trying to tell me?
Next on my tour of Nepal, was a real moving experience for me. I went to Lumbini. Birthplace of Gautama Siddhartha, the world honored one, the Buddha. On the full moon of May about 2552 years ago Maya Devi was on her way home when she realized the baby was coming. So she bathed in a pond and gave birth to Price Siddhartha. There is a big shrine and temple at the pond. Monasteries from a dozen Buddhist countries are all located there. There is a world peace pagoda. It was a very special spiritual place.
I stayed for 3 days and then came here, to Sauraha a village at the entrance to Chitwan National park. There are a lot of elephants in this village. There is elephant poop on all the roads. Every time you go walking around you see boys riding elephants. Chitwan is also famous for the rare one horn Rhinoceros. The Unicorn of Asia. Tomorrow I will go n aon an elephant safari trip to see the one horn Rino. I will write again soon.
Peace and Love,
Robert
"In life never do as others do…Either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does." Gurdjieff

"Ram Tzu believes In the law Of cause and effect. He just doesn’t know Which is which" Ram Tzu

"Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity." Voltaire

"This is universal. You sit and observe your breath. You can't say this is Hindu breath or Christian breath or Muslim breath." Charles Johnson

Last update from China

September 2, 2011 Ni Hao Everyone,
I am beginning this letter from Chengdu a city in Sezuan province of China. Tonite I will take an overnight train to Kunming, where I will finish this letter before I leave China and go to Kathmandu Nepal on September 6.
Since my last update I left Ping yao after 5 days there. The time spent there was uneventful but It was there that my interest in the writings the Tao de Ching were renewed. I read a nice book there called the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet, which seeks to explain "The Way" of Lao Tzu in terms of Winnie the Pooh characters. Here in Chengdu I traded up my copy of Norman Mailers classic war story "the Naked and the Dead" for the penguin classic edition of The Tao De Ching and I have been reading it ever since.
Its funny how on the surface I think of my time in Ping Yao as having little significance but on the other hand it may be that one is quietly, gently guided through life to find what one needs as one needs it. In Ping Yao the Dao came alive for me! I met a Chinese hotel manager there who is a taoist, and we read a chapter of the Tao de Ching together every day.
From Ping Yao, I traveled by over night train to Xi An and couch surfed with a Scots man called Ali and his chinese girlfriend called Joy. Ali has a degree in Philosophy from somewhere in Britain and studies Kung Fu and teaches English in Xi An. He and I had a lot of totally cool talks about the nature of reality and the philosophy of Kung fu and Tai Chi.
We went to some great restaurants near his apartment and generally hung around drinking tea and talking and going for walks in the evening. During the days i hung around the Buddha gardens near the Wild Goose Pagoda and just relaxed my mind.
China, like everywhere else I have been, is a lot different than I expected! There is plenty of religious freedom here. There is a booming economy and there seems to be none of the usual signs of urban decay, like public drunkenness and drug abuse, there are almost no beggars and I have no fear of violence, there are certainly enough police but most of them carry no weapons. Buddhist and taoist monks walk freely in the streets un molested by the government.
That being said, this is certainly NOT a democracy, and there is a great deal of political repression. The great wall has been replaced by the great firewall. I can not read my blog, or post anything on it here in China. Google searches and wikipedia topics are censored. On an everyday kind of walking around life, it is just like anywhere else I have been but beneath the surface...it can be quite repressive, though most chinese will (just like everywhere else in the world) never have a run in with the police or the government.The days of "the Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" are over.For most practicl purposes this is a capitalist country with an oligarchy running the government.
I think that most people dont give a hoot about politics or really even political freedoms. Most of us do not want to run for office or change the government. I think it is fari to say that in my own country most of us do not feel our government cares about what they want, or does what they want, or spends their taxes on what they want them to spend them on.
So I think that in this respect China is no different from most western countries. they have an admitted one party system, while my country has a one party system which it claims is a two party system. both countries put lots of people in prison and even execute people they feel have lost their right to live...Barbarians both. I feel both are more oligarchy than democracy and I base this on the fact that 95% of the people who get elected are actually getting re-elected!
These things are of little importance to me. All I get from my government is a valid passport so i can come and go as I please. Of course I want more but I wont likely get it. What is really important in life, A person must get for himself.
The reason we are here is to raise our consciousness and I do not think your government can help or hinder you in this. Their power, their authority is all just illusion. Their rules are just that! Rules, not laws. Man makes rules God makes laws. It is easy to tell which is which, you can break the rules but not the laws! So before leaving Cheng du, I managed to trade my copy of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" for Lao Tzu's The Dao De Ching.
I am now in Hunnan provence, in Kun Ming after a very pleasant overnight train from Cheng Du. I fly to Nepal in 3 days where i will write another update.Until then I urge all of you to continue breathing and being where you are!
Peace and Love to you all,
Robert
" Sincerity is the key to self-knowledge and to be sincere with oneself brings great suffering." Gurdjieff

"Concepts can at best only serve to negate one another, as one thorn is used to remove another, and then be thrown away. Only in deep silence do we leave concepts behind. Words and language deal only with concepts, and cannot approach Reality."Ramesh Balsekar

"You are Timelessness in which no death can enter, for where there is no time there is no death. That Timelessness is Now, and that is Being. Being is always shining. I AM is the Light of Being. This Diamond cannot hide and can never be hidden." Sri H. W. L. Poonja

Tavel update from Beijing

August 18, 2011 Nei hao
I am in China. I was in Beijing for 7 nights and it was a very nice experience. At first Beijing is very difficult for the independent traveler who does not speak chinese. I arrived by train to Er Lian from Mongolia. My last memory of Mongolia is getting taken by the ticket office at the international train sales window. I bought a combination train/bus ticket. The train part went smoothly enough. I was told when I bought my ticket that a person would be waiting at the train station with a sign with the name of the bus company on it and I would be taken to the bus and taken to Beijing to arrive at 7or 7:30 am. Well what a line of bullshit!
There was no one there to meet me! I showed my bus ticket to some taxi drivers and they said they knew where the bus was and they would take me. Now remember I speak no chinese and the taxistas speak no english. This is all done in charades, grunts and gestures.
I felt i was being cheated again but was at a loss as to what else to do so I went with the most persistent driver and he took me to the bus station and a little shop where a woman immediately got out her calculator and started screaming " Change money! Change money! " This turned out to be her only english!! I showed her my ticket and she took out a stack of identical tickets so i knew I was in the right place and paid my taxdriver.
She in turn walked over to the bus station and bought me a ticket on the next (the only!) bus to Beijing which was at 4:30 pm so I had to wait 5 hours and paid about 3 times what i would have paid if I had done all this on my own. Just shows that even an old road dog like me can get ripped off!! Ah hahh well what is traveling for if not to learn? huh?
So the real shit was that I would now have to arrive in Beijing at 4am not 7:30 and as any experienced traveller knows that really sucks! It is never good to arrive in a strange city where you do not speak the language and do not know where you are going in the middle of the night.
I had a reservation at a hostel and had instructions from the bus station to the hostel by public bus but the public bus and metro do not begin service until 5:30 and check-in time at my hostel was 12 noon. So I finally took a taxi 5 kilometers to the hotel and paid more than the price of the bed for the ride.
I have had a fine and interesting first week in China. Beijing is a fantastic city. An excellent example of all man can create by using his mind. Lots of noise, traffic, pollution, art, beautiful old architecture, FABULOUS indescribable foods, beautiful new architecture, all the latest fashions and McDonalds! It just may be possible that the air quality here is even worse than Los Angeles. I aint sure. The sky is always grey. It is amazingly dirty air i am breathing!
I did the tourist stuff, went to the great wall and the forbidden city. What a bunch of hoooey. Crowds and touts and tour operators with their silly little flags and... well if any of you want to know more about it you can look it up on google!! As for the great wall...Well here I go kids...
The wall is just another example of the minds unwillingness to accept impermanence. In mankinds history, we create false ideas like countries and religions and artificial groupings of humans like tribes and clans and races, and try to maintain these artificial notions through propaganda if possible and through force if not.
The wall did not work. It never works. Millions of chinese peasants were conscripted to do the work. More than a million ( I am told ) died of starvation exposure and exhaustion and OF COURSE it did not work. Just like all the walled cities that fell under seige in all the wars in history did not work. Just like the Maginot line did not work. Just like Stalin's iron curtain did not work, or the Berlin wall or the DMZ between north and south Viet Nam. None of them worked none will ever work. Stalin could not keep out McDonalds, Coca Cola and Christian D'Orr.The Chinese could not keep out the barbarians.
I come from a country (USA) where millions of retards think we should construct a 2000 kilometer wall on our border with Mexico at a cost of trillions of dollars and then to patrol it at a cost of trillions more. This is a bankrupt country mind you, that can not possibly pay for this any way other than to borrow the money and increase the national deficit!! When it will not, can not possibly work!!
After all the pain and money the emperors spent on the wall, Ghengis Khan came to it and looked up and saw it and called out to the guards and gave them bribe of a basket of gold coins and they opened the doors to the gate and... he...just...waltzed...in!
The mind wants to make permanent that which was never real (an empire, a country) to begin with. The mind wants security when there is no sescurity. All things must pass. All times are local. At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
So now I am here and here it is now and I am in Yao Ping. It is an ancient walled city in central China. Things here are as they were 300 years ago. It is like being in a different century. Some times it is hard to say just what time it really is, what century we are all living in. All times truly are local!! If things go as planned (hahhh!!) I will be here for 4 more nights and then go to Xi'An. I am in the process now of getting a train ticket. Travel in China is almost as difficult as Russia. It is very frustrating because I have been to so many countries where things are so much easier.
Xi'An is famous for Noodles. it is said to be the place whrerr noodles were invented. I am stoked to go and try some of the best noodles in the world. Chinese food here in China is fantastic, delicious, awesome, radical, and ten times better than the chinese food one gets in Chinese restaurants in other places in the world.
I am reading and discussing Chinese spiritual teachings with the locals when I get the chance. I am learning a lot about the Tao (the way) as taught by Lao-tse and Chuang-tse. I am having fun in a chinese kind of way. i am happy to be alive, I am happy to be here and I am happy it is still now.
Peace and love to all of you,
Rambling Robert

"A well frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then cn a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning."Chuang-tse

"Fine weapons are instruments of evil. All Creatures hate them. Therefore followers of the way do not use them..To rejoice over victory by violence is to rejoice over slaughter. He who rejoices over slaughter cannot unite within the empire ... the wise ruler sees military triumph as a funeral. " Lao Tse (from Tao Te Ching)


"If you compare the city to the forest, you begin to wonder why it is that man considers himself superior to the animals" Benjamin Hoff

travel update: leaving Mongolia

Hello Everyone,
Well i am just about ready to get back on a train. This time i will be going from ulaan Baatar to Erhan China. I will only be in Erhan long enough to catch a bus to Beijing. I have been staying here In Ulaan Baatar for the last 5 days and once again i have retured to stay at mongolian steppes guest house. When I got back here, the two French artists (Mario and Mathieu) and the American Marathon runner( Herb from Minnesota) were also back at the Hostel! All had been out tramping around the countryside and we are all back now. So we have been kind of hanging around together having a few beers at anight and sharing a dormitory and even cooking a few dinners together.
I split from Ulaan Baatar for a week and went to Harkhoran. This is the ancient capital of mongolia. It is where Ghengis Khan made his capital and remaind the capital for a long time like 40 or 50 years, until his son moved the capital to present day Beijing. Kharkorum is also the home of mongolias first and oldest Budhist monastery.
Today it is a rather ugly little city of 10,000 people in a rather beautiful location. It is far from anywhere and not so easy to get to. There is one bus per day to U.B. and no bus to anywhere else! if you want to go somewhere else, you can take a horse or hitch hike. I spent a day exploring the budhist ruins with Alex, a traveler from Roumania whom i met on the bus going there and the rest of the time I spent by myself. The first day there it rained like crazy. After this, ther river overflowed ant my Ger ( a big round tent, like a Yurt ) camp was flooded. There was no electricity for a day and it was rather drizzling and miserable.
The owners of the camp, performed quite a civil engineering miracle by putting a dam between the camp and the overflowing river, and then using an gasoline powered pump to drain the camp of the flood waters. The waters had gotten up to my Ger and I had repacked my backpack and was all ready to move to higher ground somewhere when Suvd and her family stemmed the tide of the flooding river and I was able to remain there. I was the only guest for the next 4 nights and it was very tranquil. I spent my time reading and meditating and taking long walks out on the (still soggy) steppe.
Suvd's (the Ger Camp owner) brother is a Shaman of the old Mongolian religion, which is similar to BON religion from Tibet. He was there in town to do some ceremonies and to bring luck to the "faithful" . I tried to arrange a meeting or at least to be allowed to sit in on a ceremony but alas, it was not to be... I was a little disappointed but I respect the fact that they do not want their religious beliefs to be a spectacle or a tourist attraction. A source of "amussement" for foreigners.
So I returned to Ulaan Baatar, and it is from here that I am writing this. Tomorrow, August 8, I will take a night train to China. I have a ticket to take an over night bus from the border to the capital and I should arrive in Beijing on the morning of August 10. I am going to stay at Hostel Leo where I will meet Mario and Mathieu, two French artists that I know from here in Mongolia. I expect to be in Beijing at least a week, so I will write the next update from there.
Peace and love to all of you,
Robert

"There is an 'I', a potential soul. If we can say with the same simplicity 'I have a body' as we say 'I have a car' we can begin to realize that this body is a transforming machine which 'I' have. 'I' have a machine to use, does not mean 'I' am a machine. 'I' have a body, a mechanical organism whose function it is to transform substances and energies."
A.R. Orage
" We attract forces according to our being." Gurdjieff
"I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey." Mark Twain

travel update from outer mongolia

Hello from Ulaan Baatar,
I am in Ulaan Baatar the capitol of Mongolia. Mongolia is a country of less than 3 million people, mostly nomadic herdsmen. Modern day Mongolia was called outer Mongolia when i was a child. It was deeply under the sway of the Soviet Union, but it did maintain its independence, at least on paper. Though in fact, Stalin and his boys were calling the shots, so to speak. Today it is a parliamentary democracy and the people seem pretty happy. they are part of the global community and tourism is beginning to reach them, although it is NOT an easy country for the independent traveler. Inner Mongolia is part of the Democratic Peoples Republic of China. I will pass through Inner Mongolia on my way to Beijing, soon. I expect to be in Beijing on August 10.
After a few days in Irkutsk Russian Siberaia, I went with Tom to visit Lake Baikal. It is 1,600 meters deep. So that makes Lake Baikal the deepest lake in the world. It is said to contain 20% of all the un-frozen fresh water in the world, More water than the Great lakes of USA and Canada (Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior, and Ontario ) combined! I find that hard to believe but you can look it up! It is truyly a beautiful sight to see. A vast in-land sea that stretches for as far as the eye can see. Very cold and crystal clear waters. The following day we got back on the trans siberian rail road and left Russia and 36 hours later, entered Mongolia.
I have been here in Mongolia since 18 July. I arrived in the capital city and the following day took off for Terelj National Park. I stayed there for a couple of nights in an "eco camp" owned and run by Bert, who is a Dutch expat and crazy as a loon!! On the other hand, he is a hobby cheese maker and he makes most excellent Gouda cheeses. I watched and learned a lot from him. All the milk he uses come from his own free ranging grass eating cows. Happy cows make happy cheese! Most of the deal is in control of the temperature, and the process of separating the curds from the whey. After this it is all about aging. In the end I bought a quarter kilo of some excellent home made cheese from him and I enjoyed the last of it in a grilled cheese sandwich this afternoon, accompanied by a couple of eggs over easy.
I am not exactly sure what an eco camp is, even after staying in one. I was going to ask Bert but he is so crazy that it seemed not a good idea to risk further agitating the man. He needs an anger management course...I can not for the life of me decide why he should be so angry. he lives in one of the most beautiful and tranquil places I have ever seen on this lovely green planet of ours. Beautiful green valleys of grass called steppes for as far as the eye can see. lovely gentle hills surround his lush beautiful valley. herds of free ranging livestock Yaks, cows, horses, sheep, goats go slowly grazing by,...
The Mongolian cowboys go galloping along and their dogs kind of keep the animals in a group. the cowboys sing as they ride! Serious!! You can hear them singing to themselves out loud as they go by on their ponies.
The lodging is rather primitive in a fun way. I stayed in what is called in Mongolian a "Ger". In Khazakistan, it is called a "yurt". It is a circular shaped tent. It is semi permanent structure. you can take one down or put one up in an hour if you are experienced. There is a wood stove in the middle and there is a little chimney so it is warm at night. Our Ger had 5 beds in it. there are bigger ones and also smaller ones.
Near our camp is a lovely little river with crystal clear rather cold water. I took a very brief dip but did not swim. My two travelling companions Mathew from Denmark and Florian from Germany did , but they did not stay in the water for very long. Next day I took a long walk around the steppe and gathered mushrooms with Nellie, which Bert inspected to be sure we would not poison ourselves and after his approval we sauteed them in olive oil and served them on toast. Very nice indeed. We cooked in the Ger of Nellie a german woman who was there at the same time as us and she had brought a camp stove and some frying pans. We all had dinners together while we were there and left together as well.
During my long walks and solitary sitting time out there on the Mongolian steppes I found myself contemplating the Sourse of my "self". My "being" or my "essence" as it were. Many of you have heard me speak of the line of being and the line of doing. I often say I am a human being not a human doing. Many of you also have heard me speak of the inevitable law of karma, of cause and effect, action and reaction. The problem is like the chicken and the egg, where does one begin and the other end? What comes first? is not every action merely a reaction?
Well I believe I have come to a new understanding. A man's being is the cause, and his doing is the effect. That is why one works on ones being. because all your doing is a result of your being. If one can perfect or at least improve ones being, his doing, that is to say, his actions, will also change in corresponding fashion.
It has been said that in order for a man to "do" first he must truly "be". I have pondered this riddle for decades. Mr. Gurdjieff was said to have told his pupils that a man, such as he is, can "do" Nothing. for Man in his present state things just happen, that doing is illusion. Last week on the steppes of outer Mongolia this idea truly made sense to me for the first time. I have been working on my being for a long time now. Working on my ewssense by observiong my "self" ...Observing my breath, my fantasies and daydreams, my body at rest. Not doing, just observing. It is the observing that brings about a change.
In quantum mechanics it is said that the observation of the experiment changes the experiment. That there is no line of separation between observer and observed. To observe the experiment is to change the experiment, so I reckon that to observe ones self is to change ones self.
Below are some quotes to think about until my next update. I hope this letter finds all of you well and peaceful.
Peace and love to you all,
Robert

"The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way." Mark Twain

"Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same reason." Douglas Adams

"The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious." PD Ouspensky

travel update from Siberia Russia

Previet Everyone,
Moscow was a good city. It is not so different from St. Petersburg. The population is of course much larger. Both cities have a lot of foreign visitors. Foreigners do not stand out very much there. It is easy to find helpful people who speak english, especially among the younger folks I am meeting. Even the police were helpful if you are a foreigner looking for directions or asking questions.
Globalization has come to Russia. Everywhere one looks it is all the same as other countries. McDonalds, Subway Sandwich, Starbucks. Tuborg, Heineken, Budweiser, Johnny Walker, and Jack Daniels. People dressed in the same fashions as in the west, reebock shoes, Dolce and Gabbano, Christian D'or. Young people with tatoos, American and British rock and roll music in the air. Bob Marley playing on the stereo in my hostel...BMW, Toyota, Chevrolet, Mercedes Benz cars...I am a little disappointed. I was hoping to drink tea prepared in a samovar. No deal. Plastic electric tea kettles have taken over the world!
Well, I suppose this is what some would call "progress". I am not so sure about that. It seems to be a lack of character and an overdose of uniformity. In Thailand they have an expression...they say "Same, same but different". I am not saying that it is completely characterless. People still eat Blini, Pierogi, and lots of different kinds of caviar. Lovely breads and interesting cheeses. If you all are planning to travel to see how the different cultures differ one from another, I suggest you not waste too much time. The forces of mass marketing is bringing the east to the west, the north to the south and turning everything inside out! Just my opinion but, based on my first hand observations...
Trying to buy our train tickets in St.Petersburg or Moscow at the train stations was a horror show! Long lines and ticket counter sales people who did not speak anything but Russian and were not in the mood to try to help at all. People who were behind in the line volunteered to help by translating, (so friendly, so helpful, so sweet) but most of the trains are crowded or sold out. We had to take a bus to Moscow and from there trying to buy tickets for trans siberian rail road trains was all but impossible. Finally in desperation we bought them on the internet from RealRussia.com and paid the extra commisions. Ahhh, What the wahh hay! it was worth the price for the added convenience and security of knowing we would be able to get on the train! The first leg of my great trans siberian rail road journey is done. 56 hours from Moscow to Tomsk.
The train was modern and very comfortable. We had cheapest tickets, in third class. People were super friendly! We were the only not Russian people in our car! There were a couple of teenagers who were travelling with grown-ups who translated for us. We played checkers with them and Rummy and 17 matches. They invited us to play chess but we both do not play. Pity it looks like fun...
Everyone brings their own food. There is not much to do so everyone is eating all the time! Like a big camping trip. The train has a big samovar so there is boiling water any time ( I finally got to use a samovar! ) you want to make tea or coffee or cup of instant noodles or instant mashed potatoes or soup in an envelope. They also had a microwave oven you can use.
Most of the people bring bread and make sandwiches of hard cooked egg or salami or cheeses smoked or canned fish. Lots of fresh fruit like cucumbers, apples, bananas, cherries and strawberries. Lots of pastries and sweets. Everyone was offering us stuff to taste or to eat. There is not much to do so everyone is eating all the time. It is like a big camping trip! I loved it, so much fun.
There are many stops and you can get out on the platforms and stretch your legs and of course all kinds of stuff are available to buy. After 56 hours, however, I was about ready to get off and stay in a town for a couple of days and take a shower. Which is what we did.
So we stopped in Tomsk a city of 500,000 people built along the Tom River in South Central Siberia. Tom and I are the first Americans to stay at the Eighth Floor Hostel. It is a nice hostel and the staff is friendly. It is rather new and everything is very clean. It is a converted apartment. The city population is about 50% university students they say. There are many XVIII century old wood buildings, actually more like giant log cabins. Very beautiful and interesting. It is obviouse they do not get many foreign travellers here! After 3 days and 2 nights we got back on the train to go to Irkutsk.
Once again we had the third class cheap tickets but this was an older train and it was not as nice as the earlier train. lucky for Tom and me we only had to stay on for 36 hours. It was very hot and uncomfortable. The people were great very friendly and there were two French men on the train with us so we were not the only foreigners.
I am writing from Irkutsk. Irkutsk is famous for lake Baikal. It is said to be the deepest lake in the world. 1.6 km deep at the deepest point. Irkutsk is not exactly on the lake but rather about 60km from the lake. We will go tomorrow to the lake and to Taltsy.
Taltsy is a big outdoor museum, actually a rebuilt replica of a siberian village from the eighteenth century.It is about half way between here and the lake so we will go there first and then continue on to the lake. We will stay for the day and return to Irkutsk.
Here in Irkutsk we are staying in a 101 year old home made of logs. It is way cool and the owner Igor, is a gem of a man. He is a director and producer of theater plays. he has done a great deal of the work on the home himself. Restoring here and refinishing there. The place is totally unique. i am loving it!!
Well thats all for now. Next update from Mongolia!
peace and love to all of you
Robert

"Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles."Bob Dylan
"Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after -- lightly because you realize you never paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again." Louise Erdrich

“There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.” G.I.Gurdjieff

travel update from Moscow

Provyet,
Well now I am here. Here I am now. Uuhhh, wow wait let me start over. I am in Moscow.
The capital of Russia. I arrived here on the morning of 4 July. Independence Day in USA. To what Ronald Reagan once called the black heart of the dark empire. He of course was stuck in time. I am a A Eulipian...a time traveller. A journey agent...I know everything is in a constant state of change. I know that "This too shall pass" There is no need to annihilate one another if one is patient...
"I hung around St. Petersburg until I saw it was a time for a change" Mick Jagger "Sympathy for the Devil"
I was in St Petersburg for 4 days haunted by that line from an old Rolling Stones song. St P. is a beautiful and vibrant city full of friendly and helpful people. I am walking in history. Staring in open eyed wonder at the Hermitage, the old summer palace of the Czars since the time of Peter the Great until the Bolshevik Revolution. Wow those folks were awfully good at spending other peoples money. The architecture and art and just sheer beauty of the old imperial city are in a word, breathtaking. Truly one of the worlds most magnificent cities.
My first day in St P. however was another one of those travel days in... HELL!! Murphy was watching and guiding me from on high. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong. It started out fine, our bus from Helsinki was on time and going through customs was a breeze. A nice girl on the bus offered to walk us right to the front door of the hostel we reserved as she was walking that way herself. So it was easy to find. Then the fun began.
We arrive and it is too early to check in. We must wait until 1pm. The receiving agent at the desk speaks no English or Spanish only Russian. The place looks like a real dump! She will not let us look around. She does not want us to leave our stuff there so we can go out and walk around.Okay, so we pantomime and get directions to the bank machine so I can get some Russian money. Tom stays behind with our stuff. I get the money count it up and go have a walk about.
When I return I am going to sort my cash and notice that somewhere along the way, I lost a 500 ruble note and a pair of 100ruble notes. I can not believe it. I withdrew 7000 (about 250 or 270 dollars) and somehow, lost 700 (about 25 or 30 dollars). I counted it all at the bank machine, so I know the bank did not short me. I lost it. I do not know where or how...I feel like such a fool. I realize that I am not breathing with awareness so I watch my breath and immediately feel better, even if I do not feel richer! It is only money why let it molest me?
Now Christina the owner of the hostel comes and tells us she is over booked and has no room for us. I am breathing with awareness. I smile at her. She says "I can take you to another hostel close by". "Let me call" she says. I am breathing like a Buddha and things are improving. She says she can get us in, and she can walk us over there in a few minutes. I ask if I can use the toilet and she says " It is for guest only, do you really need to go?"...I smile with my out breath. It is better than telling her she is a 3 holed ass!
After I get back from the toilet, I feel better and ask her if she can register us with the police. All tourists who stay in Russia more than 7 days must register with the police. She says yes it will cost 3600rubles. I will think about it I say. She says well...I can do it for 2800. Okay I say let me think about it some more. She goes down to 2100 for us both. The girl who walked us there from the bus had told us it should cost about 300 each.
We get to the new hostel. It is cleaner, brighter , friendlier, and just all in all much better. We get into our dormitory and I need a nap. I have been traveling all night and did not sleep well on the bus. I am asleep when our new administrator wakes me and says I must change rooms because Christina is back and she has more guests whom she over booked and...I am angry. I am not breathing with awareness, I am pissed off. I am tired. i am an important person. I demand respect and to be treated kindly I am an ego machine and I want to scream, I breath in calm and give her a smile on the out breath and move my shit. What else could I do? She is grateful for my understanding. I am glad. I am really tired but I am happy.
Christina wants us to commit to letting her register us. I breathe calmly. I tell her go ahead, I will pay her tomorrow when we go to the ATM. I am clever. I know it costs her nothing to register me and after she has done the work she will accept the normal fee. If not, we can register in Moscow. I smile knowing this, while I breathe out. I am a New Jersey Buddha. Two days later after more of her belly aching we pay her 300 each.
Moscow. Red Square. The Kremlin. St. Basil's cathedral. It is like a dream. I am walking in history. It is 4th of July 2011. I am in front of Lenin's tomb. Standing on the exact spot that 20 minute man ICBMs used to be pointed. Ground ZERO of the nuclear nightmare. Only that was then and this is now. That too has passed. It is peace. We are friends. I am at peace. I watch as the thing I call "me" breathes in calmly and breathes out smilingly and i am loving life, right here right now in Moscow!
Tom asks the desk clerk of our Moscow hostel, The Comrade Hostel, how much it costs to register a guest with the police? She says 900 each. Tom smiles and breathes with calmness.
Peace and love to all of you
Robert
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Travel teaches toleration."Benjamin Disraeli
"The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, "Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess I wish I were sitting quietly at home." And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."Thornton

travel update finland

Greetings from St Petersburg Russia,
I arrived in St Petersburg (SP) from Helsinki on 29 June at 7am. After a marvellous week in Finland, visiting with my good time friend and travelling mate, Samuel. After Sam met me at the Ferry station from Estonia, we went and got Tom at the Airport. Sam took us to an apartment of his friend Harry, who was going to allow us to stay there and use the flat for the duration of our visit in Helsinki. The flat was nice modern rather large one room studio, with a kitchenette. Harry had been in some kind of accident and his face was badly bruised. He was going to stay with his sister and therefore we had the place to ourselves.
For the first two days Samuel took us all around Helsinki and one of the islands in the harbor called Suomenlinna. This island had been a fortress island to protect the city against marauding Vikings, and invading Germans, Danes, and Swedes. There are lots of old fortifications and it is generally a beautiful green island with lots of birds and flowers. The weather was warm and the sky was blue and we had a great time there.
In Helsinki, we looked at all the old historic buildings and statues. Now, I enjoy this kind of thing. and truly, Europe is the best place to look at such stuff, but I get a little tired of it. We bought some beer and hung out at a lovely park where lots of people stroll down the center lane and sun bath. There was a jazz saxophone player who was very good and he was blowing that horn for free and we sat in the grass and listened to the sounds of the city with jazz in the air.
After two fine days in beautiful Helsinki, Tom and I went with Samuel and 4 of his friends, Sami, Katia, Ryah, and bruised face Harry, to the summer cottage of Katia, who is a work mate of Sami and Ryah. The cottage turns out to be more like a stunning compound of several cottages and a smokey sauna on Finlands third largest lake. We stayed there for 4 days, to celebrate the Summer festival called Jaunas Which means White Nights. The principle form that this celebration takes is drinking alcohol and eating way too much food!
The lake had stunning views. We got to experience the midnight sun, that is to say, The sun never really sets. Finland is on the same lattitude as Alaska USA. It is the farthest north I have ever been on planet Earth. The lake is only about 200 kilometers from the artctic circle. For 3 months per year it never actually gets what one would call dark. We had a great albeit drunken 4 days there.
The Finnish Smokey Sauna, is a Small well insulated room with a fire box and on top of the fire box a big pile of volcanic stones. They fill the box with wood and close the doors and open a small vent and the place gets very hot inside. The fire is smokey as can be, and after 2or 3 hours they open the doors and vent out the smoke and we get in and sweat. the aromas of wood smoke and the heat are fabulous together. I felt like a giant smoked salmon! While you are in there, you beat yourself with bunches of leafy birch branches. these branches and especially the leaves have a kind of oil in them and it feels and smells wonderful.
Ah yes and it is so and so it goes. Finally we drove back to Helsinki for more of the same Jazz in the park, but a different band. Actually I heard 3 very good jazz performances for free in the parks of Helsinki. It is a great place for people watching, ice cream eating and beer drinking. Samuel showed us all the best stuff, and translated everything we were interested in. Finally, our time there was done and now I am in Holy Mother Russia.
I will go to Moscow in 2 more days, and for now, i am just enjoying St.Petersburg, though Russia is already proving to be as difficult as the rumors from other travelers have told us. Enough for now.
Peace and love to all of you
Robert
"What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about "right" and "wrong," or "good" and "evil," and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?" Sam Harris
"Only the gentle are ever really strong." James Dean
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."Albert Einstein

travel update from estonia

greetings everyone,
I am in Helsinki, Finland. I arrived here yesterday from Tallinn Estonia. I was in Estonia for 9 days, 5 days in Parnu.
From there I took a two hour bus to Tallinn the capital city and couch surfed with Peeter, for 4 nights and then yesterday I took a two hour ride on the Tallink Ferry "Superstar" a big and comfortable ship, over the Baltic Sea to Helsinki the capital and largest city here in Finland.
I first arrived in Estonia, from Riga Latvia by bus and got off in Parnu. Estonia is a small country of about 1,400.000 persons, and Parnu is a small city or really more like a big town. I stayed 5 nights in Hostel Louna on Louna street, which was about the cheapest place I could find. Still a dorm bed was 13 euro which comes out to about 19 or 20 USD.
the hostel is beautiful example of 1920s art neauvea architecture and cleaner than your mothers house. Just absolutely spotless. Great showers, small but adequate kitchen free internet, everything a cheap ass backpacker could want except there was no book exchange. I have been lugging around a copy of Ernest Hemingway Islands in the Stream until yesterday where I traded ilt with Peeter in Tallinn for an english copy of Kurt Vonnegutts Cats Cradel.
Parnu is full of lovely well manicured green parks with lawns and lots of big old shady trees and benches to sit on. Across the street from the hostel is a skate park, where the local teen agers all do crazy sick shit on bicycles and skateboards and in line skates and razor boards. AHH YIKES, none of them wear elbow or knee pads. There are a bunch of jump ramps and these kids know how to do the most radical moves turns and tricks. I wish my little buddy Mateo Carvajol was here...LIKE TOTALLY RADICAL DOOOOD
Parnu also has a beautiful white sand beach on the baltic sea, well I guess technically the water here is the gulf or bay of finland. Same body of water, it just changes its name from place to place or time to time. The water here is warmer than in Latvia or Lithuania and I was able to get in and swim a few minutes before turning blue, but damn near froze my arse off when I got out and into the wind.
It is hard to explain the attraction I felt toward Parnu. I stayed for 5 nights. I suppose I had seen the whole place after only 2 nights but it was just so peaceful and tranquil, clean and orderly I just felt like I didnt want to move on. Not a whole lot to DO in the classical sense of the word but a very pleasant place to BE. Mainly my activities were walking around the old town part of the city, and walking around on the beach and walking and sitting in the many beautiful green parks. People watching and Meditative Breathing.
It is summer here now, or will be in a week. This is the land of the midnight sun and it is light out until midnight and gets light again at about 3 or 4 am. The weather was mild and about 25 or 30 in the day and drops down to 20 or 18 at night for the first 3 days, so for you Americans that would be between 78 and 86 in the day and 65 to 70 at night. So I paid to stay for 2 more nights and of course the weather changed the moment I signed the receipt. Not bad but quite cooler and the beach walks became rather less fun.
So I arrived in Tallinn on 17 June. I couch surfed with Peeter, an artist who uses photography as his art form. Actually his job is photo editor of Estonia's largest daily newspaper, but his paintings hanging in his home are first rate and of course he takes great photos.
Peter was a great couch surfing host. He made me killer breakfasts in the morning and I cooked for the two of us in the evenings. I highly recommend Tallinn to any of you who happen to be in that part of the world. there is a good "old town" and it is a nice clean safe modern city.
The out of control, totally coolest thing about my time there was, last saturday, when we went out with some of his friends who own a 7 meter sail boat and we all went sailing in the Baltic sea! They keep the boat about 60 km from Tallinn in a little harbor and you have to drive through a beautiful forest national park to get there. We saw some wild fox while we were en route, which was very exciting for me, but no big deal to the Estonians who see them all the time. I kept thinking of my old partner Phil and my Buddy Lorenzo who I used to go sailing with back in California...
The boat trip was great. We sailed about an hour and arrived at an abandoned Soviet Submarine base. Here the soviet navy used to de-magnetize the hulls of the submarines. What an eerie feeling it is to be in a place that, (in all likelihood) used to be targeted by my countries nuclear missiles! Anyway it was a great place to have a couple of beers a few sips of Cutty Sark Scotch Whisky and a little pic-nic snack!!

I love the experience of being an explorer. Of going to new countries, seeing new places and faces. The real joy however is the freedom the road offers. What I love best about my life, my travels is the sense of freedom that I feel. The sheer joy of being able to come and go as I please, to stay for as long as I like or to leave on the next bus, or train, or boat to anywhere I choose.
Being a stranger in a strange land, one is totally free from having to perform according to any one elses expectations. Free from all sorts of role playing. I can be whom ever I want to be and no one knows any difference. I can be BUDDHA BOB or I can be CHEF BOB or whatever I feel like being, whenever I feel like being it. I am not clocked in. I do not have any regularly scheduled time to do anything. In short I can just be my self, be who I am all the time. I am free to not have to please anyone else.
The essence of freedom is time. The only real freedom is free time. Time to do or not do whatever you want. I have read that the difference between being rich and being wealthy is that a rich person has lots of money and needs to work and a wealthy person though he may not have much money, does not need to work. That would make me wealthy.
Krishnamurti talked a lot about freedom. Saying that after one has enough money to travel ie to come and go as you please and after one is granted the right to vote ie to live free of tyranny, the 3 ultimate freedoms are Freedom from all authority both external and internal, freedom from the known and ultimately freedom from TIME.
All these last three freedoms have to do with freedom from illusion. If we look deeply, we see that there is no real authority, that nothing is ever really known, and there is no time, ie no past or future. Its all just a big illusion! Freedom from time is the ultimate and greatest of all forms of freedom. .
To be free of time one must first of all be free of the ILLUSION of time. That is the illusion of past and future. Not by reading Einsteins theory of relativity or David Bohms theories of non physical universes both of whom point out that time is an illusion, but to realize this in the depths of your soul. NOT just to understand it but to feel it and live it as well.
At that point one becomes free of time, the ultimate cage, the ultimate walls that make up ones psychological boundaries. There is only the NOW. So being free of time really means that you are free of the psychological NEED for the illusion of time. Free of the NEED for any illusion. The illusion that you need the past to form your identity and the future to bring you fulfillment and contentment.
You are who you are NOW not who you were then. Or who you plan to be in the future. There is no point in being attached to the past. As far as contentment or fulfillment is concerned the disease of tomorrow is the greatest impediment for fulfillment. Never postpone your happiness today because you think by waiting you will be even happier tomorrow. Or worse by suffering today you will achieve happiness in some fantasy "future"
A person can not strive for this freedom from time, because striving in itself implies the need for time. A person can not work on it for the same reason, ie work takes time. One needs only to realize that it is now and you are here, and to just be in the present moment. Not only this present moment but the next and the next and so on. Not a state of doing but a state of being. You do not DO free, you BE free.
Well, I am done writing for today. My friend and traveling mate Samuel, met me at the ferry terminal yesterday and later we picked up my traveling mate Tom, from the Airport and in a few days me and Tom will be off to St. Petersburg Russia and the great trans Siberian railroad trip will officially begin. Yeee Haahhhhh!!! I am NOW going to go out and explore Helsinki. I will write again soon. Below there are a few quotes to think about.
Peace and love,
Rambling Robert

" Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment." Alan Watts

"Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment." Thich Nhat Hanh

"Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today."John Dryden

travel update from Estonia

Greetings!
I arrived in Riga the capitol city of Latvia, on 6 June. I stayed with a couch surfing host family of Ieva and her daughter Alma. They live in an apartment on the outskirts of the city.
It is easy enough to get to by city trollejbus, and I found it okay, well, I found it! I made the mistake of taking the number 11 TRAM instead of the number 11 TROLLEY and wound up at the city zoo, which is nowhere near where I needed to be. So...I got back on the same Tram and started back for the center of the city.

I asked a young guy on the tram what i did wrong. He looked at the directions I had written and said " oh, you need to go to the trollejbus stop and take the trolley, this is the tram. I am going that way and I will take you there." Once again I just have to say, The world is full of good helpful friendly people and the world loves a single traveller.

I often meet people who are afraid to travel to foreign lands where they do not speak or read the local language. They ask me, "how do you get around? Arent you afraid? isnt it difficult?" They say " I could not do that." Traveling is easy. Traveling is an adventure. Just because you do not know where you are it doesnt mean you are lost.

During the years of the soviet occupation of Latvia, all the people learned to speak Russian and almost no one learned english. But now, since the end of Stalin-ism, the young people are all learning english in school. So, all one has to do is find someone who looks younger than 30 and they likely will speak english. This is what i did.

Beside me, there were 2 women couchsurfers already at Ieva and Almas flat when I arrived. They are Italian but are living in Belgium. They had agreed to make dinner and we had a lovely Pasta with Zuccini and basil that they prepared. Ieva brought some fresh mint and some limes and wanted to try to make mojitas.
And so off we went to the supermarket and I bought a bottle of jamaican rum and we managed to finish the whole bottle and made some very fine 4 star mojitas! We all had a great dinner and good times were ejoyed by all.
A word or two about Soviet style architecture. Aye Chingaso! Not only is it notorious (and rightfully so) for being UGLY, the really bad news is that it isn't really what one would call functional either. Too much vodka seems to have gone into the planning. The toilet is on one end of the flat and the bath tub on the other. The kitchen hasn't any work space.things like this. Still, the good vibes and cheerfulness of my hosts more than make up for any Soviet incompetence...
The following day I set off to explore Riga. It turns out to be a lovely city indeed. Not extraordinary by European standards, but by the standards of the rest of the world it is quite marvellous. Lots of old wooden buildings here. This is what makes it different from other old European citys, and the Eastern Orthodox style church spires.
I got out to see 2 very good jazz shows during my 6 nights there. First I saw a local guy called Artis Gaga, a saxophonist who has a weekly Wednesday night gig at a place called Dad's Cafe. He plays very well with a strongly emotional style and his band was hotter than the 4th of July. At the end, a truly truly extraordinary 10 year old girl came out and jammed with them. She played the smallest saxophone I have ever seen. She was featured soloist on SUMMERTIME and BAGS GROOVE . Fantastic to see such a young person playing out, and no shit she was really good...
Saturday night was my last night in the city. We went out to the old town and saw a jazz band from Berlin calle the OLD FISH. They play dixieland. Instead of a string base they have a Sousaphone player. A sousaphone is like a tuba but made of a light weight material for marching band use. Also a clarinet, banjo, trumpet and pianist who also played accordian. They too were fantastic. I love my life, I really do, and I have a new favorite drink.

Black Balsam is the local spirit here. It is an herbal infusion liqueur 45 percent alcohol. Sometimes it is also used in traditional medicine. It is considered to be a good cold remedy and is used to treat digestive problems. It has been made in Riga since the mid 18th century. It is said that Catherine the Great became ill when she was in Latvia, and was cured by drinking Riga Black Balsam. Ieva likes to mix it with orange juice and so that is how I drank it. A little like fernet branca but not as sweet. I liked it, no little.
Other latvian highlights were a couple of drive around the country excursions and a picnic in the forest. It is a heavily wooded country and beautiful. It is not so heavily visited by tourists because there is not so much to do. But if you like to see beautiful nature and relax among friendly people, look at old wooden architecture, swim in the baltic sea and listen to Jazz, well, Latvia is just alright with me...
I am writing this letter from Estonia. I arrived yesterday into the city of Parnu. It is a very beautiful small city with a beach on the Baltic which is where I expect to spend most of my day today. I will leave you with a few quotes and send my next update from Finland.
PEACE AND LOVE to all who read these words.
robert

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." Confucius

"So little of what could happen does happen." Salvador Dali

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." GK Chesterton

travel update from Klaipeda Lithuania

Hello Everyone,
The train from Vilnius to Klaipeda is smooth and fast. it takes about 5 hours and costs about $20 US. The scenery is nice and the seats are comfortable. I enjoyed the ride. I arrived in Klaipeda in the middle of the day.
I needed to get from the train station to the bus stop, but did not know how to get there. There is a share taxi stand so I asked the driver, he said get in and I will take you. So I went with him. It is only about a 500 meter trip and when I got out and tried to pay him, he refused and said "Welcome to Klaipeda".
This is how Lithuania has been to me. I have met nothing but friendly helpful people. I am goint to be leaving this lovely country tomorrow to go to Latvia, and I know I will miss it. hell, I miss it already and I havent even left!
Klaipeda is a beautiful small city. it is the third largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and Kaunas. It is the oldest city of Lithuania, having been founded in 1245. It is on the Baltic sea.
I am staying in Melnrage which is a lovely small beach town. The sand is white, clean and soft. The skies have been blue and almost completely cloudless the last 5 days. I go to the beach every morning for a 45 minute sitting meditation (I do not have a watch, so I am guessing). Then I go to the little grocery store and buy some stuff for the day and go home.
Home has been at the house of Romaldas. he is a 60 year old man, who is a couch surfing host. I found him on the couch surfing website and he generously offered to let me stay at his house. It is about 100 meters from the beach. He is one of the coolest characters I have met in all my travels.
Romaldas is the kind of guy one always hopes to meet when travelling. He is funny, easy going and kind and generous. He has GREAT stories about his life. He was a sort of jack of all trades who is now retired. He was injured in his spinal cord during a construction work job a few years ago, and has lost the use of his legs.
He has great stories of being a cowboy and taking cattle from Lithuania to Russia, Georgia, and Kajakistan. Drinking Vodka with border guards in the middle of the night. Wild women and soviet occupation of his beautiful country. Some black market money trading, and just the sort of free spirit happy go lucky stories I love to hear. He tells them all with a wonderful sparkle in his icy blue eyes and is not sad or bitter by any of his experiences. Just a lot of good times and of course a few bad as well.
He is a good cook. He likes to makes simple foods, does not like me to cook for him, and he does not eat many vegetables with potatoes, green onions, and cucumber pickles being the notable exceptions. He makes great tea, and has lots of friends who pop in and out all the time. They have a cigarette and a cup of tea and talk and laugh and go. Some are fishermen and they leave him fish which were caught only a few hours ago. We eat like kings!!
Romaldas calls himself an athiest but he is one of the most spiritual guys I know. He understands the golden rule of jesus and he is what my jewish friends might call a real mensh.
I was going to leave on Thursday, but then Romaldas informed me that the annual Klaipeda Jazz festival began on the following night and invited me to stay on through the weekend. What? A jazz festival?? How much do tickets cost? Free?? What??? Whoooaaaa I love this country!! You can check it out at http://www.jazz.lt/festival/
I just got back from a nice long bicycle ride through the forest. Here there is an asphalt bike trail through the forest. I love the smell of the pine needles and the shadows and sun as I pass beneath the trees. He has a good bike which he obviously no longer uses but he likes to be able to loan it to guests, and I like to take a little ride now and again.
I just did some laundry and my clothes are hanging out in the mid day sun to dry so I though, well this would be a good time to write a little travel update.Breathing In I am calmly writing to all of you, breathing out I am smiling on the world...
So, this is how it goes, travelling the world, visiting the worlds people, and seeing the sights, hearing the sounds of jazz music on this great cosmic thing we call planet earth.Third stone from the sun. Just a voodoo chile breathing and being one with the ohm.
Again i suggest (urge?) all of you retire early.Relax in a big sort of way, and take a little trip, just a little trip like I have and see what you think...Life is for living. Living in the Now and the here, wherever you are whatever you are "doing" I wish you all well.
I hope my clothes are dry. I have to pack for the bus to Riga (Latvia) tomorrow. I already have my ticket and I am leaving here at 7am to catch an 8:35am bus.The Next update will be from Latvia (or maybe Estonia). Until then I leave you with a couple of nice quotes to think about.
Peace and love to all of you
Rambling Robert

"We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." Talmud

"The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.' Abdul Ghaffar Khan

"Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are."- Jose Ortega y Gasset

Travel update from Lithuania

Hello everyone,
So here I am and I am here. Just Breathing in calmness and breathing out happiness. I left USA on 20 May and arrived mid day 21 May in London. I took a nice comfortable train from Gatwick airport to Harrow Wealdstone which is an outlying neighborhood of London and stayed 2 nights at Buddhamaya Suburbananda's Harrow Ashram. Nice place to meditate. Myself and Louis and a woman named Blan were the only ones there. Also there is a resident "Zen Master" who has taken the life form of a beautiful multicolored cat named Seamless. I sat by the koi pond and listened to the sound of the water circulating in the pond and the wind in the garden, ate vegetarian food and spoke to Louis about the meaning of enlightenment. All in all a very satisfying couple of days. A great way to get my head out of "life in America" and back to life on the path of the heart...
On 23 May I arrived in Kaunas Lithuania. This is the country where my grandparents on my fathers side and my great grandparents on my mothers side came from before they emigrated to the USA. My ancestral homeland as it were. Lithuania is the 65th country I have been to.
Kaunas is a lovely city. Clean safe and lots of cool stuff to do and see. It is the second largest city in Lithuania.I stayed at a hostel called "R hostel" which was immaculately clean. The staff all spoke English (it seems almost everyone in Lithuania under 30 years old speaks English) so it was really easy to get along there. They were among the friendliest and most professional Hostel staffs i have experienced in almost 8 years of travel. I would gladly stay in that Hostel again! I only wish the kitchen were a little bigger, but restaurant food there is quite cheap and there are of course many fruit and veg stands around the city as well as a lot of supermarkets so one can self cater easily enough. the small kitchen is not a problem if I am only staying a few nights. I stayed there for 4 nights total and i ate at a restaurant one time. The other meals were cheese and beautiful brown bread from the bake shops, and ready made salads from the supermarkets and Trader Joe's organic crunchy peanut butter sandwiches. i always stock up on TJ's peanut butter while in USA.
The MK Ciurlionis museum was a big highlight. This man is not so well known in the west. He was a composer of classical music and a painter in the early twentieth century. The majority of the pictures were beautiful soft pastels on paper and something called tempur on cardboard. Most impressive indeed. He was in the habit of composing music to go along with his art work so it was a multi-media experience.
After 4 days I took a nice modern fast train to Vilnius, the capitol and largest city of Lithuania. In Vilnius I had arranged to couch surf with Vaiva D, a 45 year old office manager who lives in a very nice and spacious apartment a few kilometers outside the center of the city.
She was an excelent host. She introduced me to a lot of her friends. Our first night together we went to a night club and saw a very good band. Actually more like a rhythm and blues "orchestra" There were over 20 musicians and 9 female singers! They started the night with an old Temptations song, "Papa was a Rolling Stone" and I was immediatly taken in by them!
They played all great old R&B songs and a Stevie Wonder medley starting with "For the city" and ending with "Superstition". Of course I got right up and tried to dance and use the cool steps my Estelita has taught me, but it was so crowded I hardly had any room to shake my booty!
There is lots of efficient cheap transportation to get around but, we did not need it as she had a car, so going around was very easy indeed... Next day we hit all the turist hot spots, saw the castels, government buildings and cathedrals, and walked around old town.
Ultimately we went to KGB museum of Genocide which was, as one would expect, a rather grim museum. The exhibits there cover the 52 years of Nazi and Soviet occupation period and the resulting resistance. I do not feel like going into details in this letter. I reckon most of you know pretty much of the history of this sad time.
What a peculiar species we human beings are. The price we pay to be and remain unconsious, and asleep is enormous, yet "we" refuse to take the necessary steps to change. We refuse to give up the false belief that through violence we can eventually end violence.
So through the "ego made Self" we, as a race, to this day, continue to produce pointless suffering unknown among any other species on our lovely green planet. We create reality. Our "attachment" to violence and the means to ensure our mutual destruction, prevents us seeing through the illusion of "heros" and "victory".
We Humans are so proud of our military might. Our "advanced technologies" our bombs, guns and ships, tanks and fighting jets. Our SeAL team commandos and our suicide martyrs. So it is and so it goes. Half a league, Half a league, Half a league, onward into the valley of death we march on and on until the dragon of war eventually devours its own head...
Sunday was a rain soaked day, but during a break in the off and on showers, we zipped off to visit Traika castel, about 25 km outside the city of Vilnius, in a lovely village of the same name. This is the lake district. The 16th century castel is built on a small island in a beautifully picturesque lake. It cost $USD 6.00 to enter and there was a very informative self guided tour in 7 or 8 languages. I recommend this place to any of you considering a visit to Lithuania.
Tomorrow, the journey continues!! I will take a train to Klaipeda, a beach town on the Baltic sea. I will write again soon. Below are some iteresting quotes to consider until then.
Peace and love to all who read this,
Robert
"We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls." Anais Nin "He who wants little always has enough." Zimmerman
"All I want is to stand in a field and to smell green, to taste air, to feel the earth want me, Without all this concrete hating me." Phillip Pulfrey

travel update Leaving USA

Hello Everyone,
At the time of the last update, I was still in the thick of getting my visas sorted out for the great Trans Siberian adventure to unfold this summer. All is now well and complete. I now have both visas in my passport and I am ready to go. I had to lay down a lot of dollars for visas, from China and especially from Russia. These are reciprocal fees, imposed on American citizens in retaliation for USA demanding fees from the citizens of Russia and China in order to apply for travel visa to come to USA.
Wow, one thing that I have observed throughout my life is that all humans seem to have in common , is how all of us hate to wait in line. It seems to me that any time or place I have ever had to deal with a government employee of any kind I had first to wait in line. Embassies and consulates are no exception. I had to go to each consulate and wait in a long line to drop off my passport and applications for visa and then return some days later to wait in another long line to retrieve my passport and visa.
Both countries have a consulate in New York, and both consulates refuse to accept visa applications by mail or commercial courier. They must be hand delivered by the applicant or a travel agency. Agencies charge about $100 to go and wait in line for you. I saved $200 by going in my self.
All in all, besides transportation, I had to pay $140 to the Chinese and about $320 to Russia. I needed to expedite my application for Russia due to time constraints so paid $250 instead of $140. I also was required to purchase travel insurance ($40) and purchase a "letter of invitation" for $30. All this for a 30 day single entry tourist visa. All I can say is I am glad it is over and I am once again able to enjoy the illusion of freedom to travel.
New York City, remains, for me, the worlds greatest city. I am not entirely what you might call a city person. I enjoy city life up to a point. I can only stay in the big crowded, mind made jungle of concrete for a few weeks at a time before the Reality of the human world becomes too much for me and I begin to yearn for fresher air and honest actuality. Think about it.
"Actuality" is what is happening in nature, in the Universe, at this moment in time. "Reality" is "Actuality" plus our ideas feelings thoughts and opinions about it. Reality is "Self" Created. The Ego (Greek word for self) creates reality. Nature creates Actuality. There are lies in Reality. Everyone knows that people lie, that we ourselves have lied and been lied to. It is part of reality. In Actuality, there is only truth.
In the reality that I have created for my self, New York is the worlds greatest city. I love this city. My parents were born there. I have been coming to New York ever since i was a baby. So now when I come, I mainly visit friends who live there, while being together with them in the now, we still reminisce about the past or share dreams of the future. Cool to see how we have changed from our pasts to our nows and where we all hope to get to.
I got to see a few very dear friends from my child hood days. Charlie, Morty and Neil have been my friends for over 40 years. For me to see them and for them to see me is a real treat. I feel like I get a more clear "image" of myself when reflected off the mirror of an old friend. I see my self and my friends from a long time, point of view.
Being in New York is like being in any other city but on some sort of mind enhancing or experience enhancing drug! The food tastes better, the music sounds better, the air is more electric, the colors are some how brighter. The people are more expressive. Most of the folks I run into here in USA are all dressed in blue, grey or black. Drab colors and "follow the leader" styles. In New York it seems many (not all) of them are out of uniform. They wear all sorts of clothes, not just the standard jeans and tee shirt uniform, in all shades of colors.
The food experience in New York is the greatest in the world as far as I have experienced. It is a vegetarian wonderland. Truly the easiest place in USA to be a vegetarian and still enjoy a "gourmet" life style. Another thing that strikes me about this city is how well the people mix. People of every size, shape, color, nationality, race and creed all live and play together. This is my impression. This is why I am always grateful to have the chance to go to New York and visit there.
My last few days in USA were spent with my brothers and their wives and kids in New Jersey which is my place of birth. In fact, my elder brother still lives in the home where we lived as children! For my niece and nephews I was uncle Robert, which is one of my favorite life roles. For me kids are like big cities, I really enjoy them...up to a point! On the one hand, I thank Buddha that I am childless! On the other hand, I really enjoy spending some time with children and especially my brothers, or my friends kids.
I was a "show and tell" item in 3 classrooms for them. I went to the school class of Harry, Margaret and Mark to talk to thier 9 and/or 10 year old classmates about my life as a traveler. They asked many good questions and I really had fun talking to them and seeing my brothers kids be proud of me.
As i finish this travel update, I feel again, the little tightness of the belly I always feel when I have packed my backpack and am ready to go! Always a mixture of aprehension and excitement. I always get an amazing sense of aliveness when at last my time comes and I hoist up my pack and strap it on and head for the door marked "To forever: this way please!"
I am looking at about two months in North East Europe followed by about 3 or 4 months in Asia, before heading back to Ecuador. Life is a journey we all must travel, each in his own way, his own time, his own reality. For me, here now, breathing in calm and breathing out smiles...the road leads on forever and the journey never stops...

Let the journey unfolds anew! I leave you all for now, with a couple of quotes to ponder.
Peace and Love,
Robert


"Life is NOT a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- ’WOW, what a ride!!! " Anonymous
"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."Miriam Beard
"To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future it is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future." Thich Nhat Hahn