Jacob Resneck’s

It’s been exactly a month since I arrived in India. By tourist standards, I’ve seen very little as I’ve been focused on some journalism projects. But in the last calendar page I’ve made a few observations, a few friends and continue to be holding my head above water in the loud, crowded and incredibly complex Indian subcontinent.

BHOPAL, India – Just one guess why a freelance journalist might be going on more than a week in Bhopal – site of the deadliest industrial disaster in history nearly 25 years back. Just one guess.

Anyway, so far I haven’t been seeing the India most westerners seek out. No Thomas Cook-all-inclusive-yoga-resort-ashram-by-the-sea with lily-white buses whisking throngs of immaculately robed tourists from the international airport in their natural fabrics, bypassing the urban poverty and despair to deliver them to an impregnable fortress of new age bliss filled with like-minded world spirits with lavish lines of credit, finicky eating habits that gather together to achieve “consciousness” and only breaking the rigors of their meditation to eat, sleep, drink, smoke and partner up for the afternoon tantra clinic.

I guess I’m just jealous.

I’d been cautioned that as a fair-skinned westerner I might be treated with far more deference and respect than I probably deserved. I recoiled at this idea. For I don’t like to be treated better or worse than the next person. I’ll wait my turn with the rest and am equally indignant whether it’s the level of service or the price that’s being raised owing to me being a foreigner.

But when I saw how brusquely people can be treated in this country I learned to shut up and accept it. What would pass for fight-starting-behavior where I’m from is standard fare in this country. In India, blaring your horn as you overtake someone is considered a courtesy to the extent that many trucks have HORN PLEASE emblazoned on the rear.

It continues to amaze me how status conscious everyone is. This morning as I leafed through the Sunday paper, I found the “brides wanted” and “grooms wanted” section. These sections are classified by religion and caste. Most state family background and professional status in the first one or two lines. There are a few in the “cosmopolitin” section that state “religion / caste no bar” which was also repeated in the small section for “Divorcees.”

I’d also been warned of the dirt, the noise and the poverty. My first evening in Delhi I had to literally side-step a fly-covered toddler that was sleeping in the entrance way of a ramshackle internet cafe. This was in the heart of the capital city. With so much population dreadfully poor many make a bee-line for a foreigner with palms outstretched begging for alms. It’s not just for foreigners, but we’re known to have more money and be a softer touch.

Riding the trains is no different. Often when a train alights at a station some of the most heart-wrenching cases of human misery board so they can limp, crawl or drag themselves down the aisles of the second and third class compartments begging for alms. Small children will ride two or three stations sweeping the carriages - I feel obliged to tip them as the trains are in dire need of a tidying up - but there are much more desperate cases.

It gets to be that I dread the stops for I know not what manner of human horror will convey itself down the aisle searching for some morsel of charity.

Young and old alike with deformed limbs will thrust their affliction in your face in an entreaty to help. Most people are moved by such desperate sights.

Not me; I’m an asshole.

I find myself being unmercifully stingy while the Indians next to me reach into their pockets to give a few rupees to a young mother with an infant at her breast. There have been exceptions but they are rare. If I start I won’t know where to stop.

At least that’s my rationalization.

While the noise, the grime, the dirt and – did I mention the noise? – continues to grate on me from the onset I’ve tried to just go-with-it. In my first days here I met a group of Belgian girls who’d traveled more than a month in India and were appalled. Appalled that things weren’t like back home in Belgium. They’d booked all-inclusive package trips (never a good idea, especially from abroad) and were shocked – SHOCKED – to find that standards weren’t up to snuff. Trains were late; the shower pressure had been a trickle; there were mysterious masculine stains on the bedclothes. All pretty pedestrian stuff in the developing world, I’d thought.

They informed me rather smugly that they intended to use their last two days in the country to hound the travel company to try and get some of their money back.

“We can be very, very annoying if we want to,” said one girl. I rather believed her.

There’s was that sort of cultivated arrogance that Europeans seem to have mastered. Talking about “Belgian efficiency” I imagined King Leopold discussing “the blacks.” They posited that if Indians were as efficient as Belgians, the country would be much more powerful.

“We work 38 hours a week,” one said. “But we work really hard in those 38 hours.”

I guess during that month they’d missed seeing the porters, builders, bicycle rickshaw drivers, and other of the labor class that often literally sleep at their worksite and toil for more than half the day for pennies an hour.

****

Bhopal, in the heart of the country, isn’t a place to capture a visitor’s imagination. Like most Indian urban centers its open spaces have been cemented over as the progress of industrialization and population pressures of modernity plaster over thousands of years of history.

And its history is fascinating – for hundreds of years by Muslim women and the old city still has crumbling palaces that are now being used as orphanages, schools and other civic departments. The UNESCO heritage sites are reportedly under renovation but one has to overlook the tar-blackened crumbling masonry to appreciate how grandiose this place once was.

Arriving in Bhopal at dusk, I trudged through the twists and turns of a predominately Muslim bosti – that’s a slum – looking for a guesthouse. Having failed, I hiked over a bridge with a small boy tailing after me begging for a handout. After five tries, I managed to find a hotel with vacancy and settled in to my relatively expensive single room which was host to a thriving colony of cockroaches.

Venturing outside it was the usual whirl of noise and traffic. Amidst the chaos I witnessed the deftest bribe I’d ever seen. At a traffic circle, a young man leaned out of a speeding van to complete an impossibly quick hand-off to a stick-wielding traffic cop posted at the intersection. It was admirably efficient though not all that discreet.

****

That’s not to say that the state of Madhya Pradesh – of which Bhopal is the capital – doesn’t have its charms. Recently, I spent two days in Pachmarhi, a hill station resort developed by the British looking for respite from the stultifying heat and humidity. The town was just another undulating mass of noise and filth from too many vehicles competing for not-enough-road and I was determined to see the surrounding national park.

Too cheap to fork out the 500 rupees ($10USD) for a jeep tour, I rented a rickety one-speed cruiser bicycle from a guy on a corner for a tenth the price. As soon as I set off I realized I should’ve test-ridden the cycle first. At the first hill I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Noooo braaaaakes!” as I careened down past bemused Indians riding in their rented jeeps.
I spent the day alternating between pushing the hulking bike frame up tortured switchbacks that cut through the mountainous terrain and using using my feet to slow myself enough to negotiate hair-pin turns so I wouldn’t meet a grisly end head-on with a rented jeep.

****

Before Madhya Pradesh and Bhopal, I had been in the northwestern province of Punjab in Amritsar. I was squinting through an alcoholic haze when the driver leaned toward me.

He said: “We have two-and-a-half liters of illegal alcohol in the car — we really shouldn’t be doing this.”

It was my new friend Aaftab. Piloting his white Fiat through throngs of highway traffic at high speed, he’d just cut-off a heavy truck and threaded the needle between a bicycle and three-wheel autorickshaw.

I wasn’t sure where he got the we part. All I’d done was guzzle the desi – Punjabi moonshine – that had been proffered. Other than choosing his and his cohorts as company for the afternoon in which we got liquored up at a building site and then drove at high-speed to the Pakistani border, I felt positively blameless for whatever might happen next.

Amritsar is a city held most holy by Sikkhs, an offshoot of the Hindu religion whose male faithful are easily identified by their turbans. It’s in the north of India not far from one of the main borders with Pakistan on a road and rail line that connects with Lahore.

I had checked in at a free flophouse run by the faithful who guard the Golden Temple – the most holy shrine – that feeds and shelters pilgrims and deadbeat foreigners alike within the massive complex. I’d arrived at about 6 a.m. from an overnight train and arrived in the steamy dormitory. The turban-clad attendant had flicked on the light to reveal a writhing mass of pasty hippies recoiling from the bright fluorescent lights. A couple of hours later I had met Aaftab, a fellow ‘couchsurfer’ who gives hospitality to strangers from the internet, and we were soon pounding desi – a white spirit made from cane sugar – and smoking bidis in a field with his friends.

After everyone was suitably buzzing, we got in the car and headed for the Wahga border. Anyone who has visited this region knows that Wahga is the second-largest tourist attraction in the area, after the Golden Temple itself. That’s because the Indian and Pakistani armies parade for each other at dusk each day as they ceremoniously close the border gate that’s divided the two nations since Partition in 1947.

There are literally bleachers erected on both sides and we could see hundreds of Pakistanis on the other side watching from a few hundred yards away. For some reason the armies weren’t parading – for all we got was a group of young girls twirling in their saris to Punjabi and Hindi music waving the green, white and orange banner of India.

My Indian companions had seen this all before and were much more interested in gawking at the sunburnt European women who show off more flesh than they’re accustomed. These desi-crazed 30-something youths gazed longingly at a group of frumpy British women in pastel colors parading past in the VIP line. Fair-skinned foreigners are often given special treatment in class conscious India.

****

I had arrived in Delhi a little more than two weeks back. How or why I stayed so long in that city I am still trying to figure. It has to do with friends and contacts and myself angling for some sort of paying work while in South Asia.

I spent considerable time trying to fall in love with Delhi. Still trying. Like cities the world over, it’s experienced a considerable crush from people fleeing the countryside in search of work. Its infrastructure is crumbling beneath the weight of all those bodies. Fortunately the government has constructed a metro subway that’s in the midst of an expansion at a frenetic pace that’s been particularly deadly for its construction workers.

Obviously modeled in part on the London Underground, a pleasant Oxbridge-accented woman’s voice admonishes you to, “Mind the Gap,” at each station. Then, as if to remind you that you’re in New Delhi and not Tottenham Court Road, she reminds passengers not to sit on the floor or spit inside the train.

There’s also a very paranoid undercurrent. Still reeling from the Mumbai attacks and past bombings, police search passengers before they enter the station. That isn’t so disturbing as much as the recorded announcements reminding you that ordinary items might be packed with explosives.

There’s also this don’t talk to strangers imperative that I think crosses the line: “Passengers are reminded not to befriend unknown persons.” Hey, this is India. Nearly everyone’s a stranger and a good portion of them still wanna chat and exchange emails. Not gonna let the threat of terrorism make me into a rude person.

I also took the time to read the rules pasted on the walls. Apparently you’re forbidden from bringing human remains, manure or combustibles on the metro. As if a funeral procession would take the tube across town.

I was also amused to see that riding on top of the metro train would incur a fine of Rs. 50 (about $1USD) as if there would be anything left of the hapless person who clamored atop a metro train before it descends underground.

But the metro is child’s play compared to the buses. Anyone who’s accustomed to jumping on or off moving freight trains would have no trouble using Delhi’s bus service. The drivers – some, not all – seem to take malicious delight in forcing passengers to run run one or two blocks before he decides to stop. All the while the conductor leans off the side urging them to run faster and catch up. Then as about only half of the passengers have managed to climb aboard, the driver impatiently guns it with men, women and children running for their lives and being scooped up by fellow passengers.

Getting off is no better.

I remember telling my Delhi friend I’d managed to figure out the buses one day.

“You rode the bus?!”she shrieked incredulously. “Seriously, Jacob, don’t take the bus. People die every day on those buses.”

She does work a beat for a daily newspaper so I’m sure she was only half exaggerating.

The darker side of the city – if there even is a lighter side to India’s capital city – is definitely East Delhi. A friend studies at a college in East Delhi and told me about a colony of solvent-sniffing kids that are falling through the cracks.

We decided to go treat a few to veggie burgers and hear their stories. Naturally, they were wary – especially of me, this hulking pale-skinned giant that doesn’t even speak Hindi. The veggie burger stand was closed so that plan fell through and most were too shy to chat for long.
We did talk to Golu, a 13-year-old who said his father drives a bicycle rickshaw and mother cleans houses. He doesn’t live at home, he said, preferring to sleep in the subway with his friends. Many of them had white-out on their lips and chins from the solvent they’d sniff to get high. They spent a lot of their time collecting bottles and using the deposit money to buy a bottle of the solvent at the corner stationery shop or pharmacy.

The workers at surrounding restaurants and shops barely glance at these skinny boys who sift through rubbish with a stick to find bottles. As the sun came out they played a game of sorts with sticks and blocks of concrete.

“I just want to be able to do something for these kids,” my friend – who himself had dabbled in solvents and other drugs at an earlier age – told me.

****

My first trip outside of Delhi was to the sacred city of Varanasi. Built on the banks of the Ganges it’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Or so they say. I also learned it’s got somewhat of druggy reputation for travelers who turn up to smoke hashish and crust.

But for Hindus, it’s the place to die. According to belief, if one’s body is immolated on a sacred pyre on the banks of the Ganges and then thrown in the river, the soul attains Nirvana. Which is not a bad deal except the firewood is incredibly expensive so the poor have to be burned in electric crematoriums – or in some cases – tossed wholesale into the sacred river.

Walking up and down Varanasi’s twisted streets and broad thoroughfares I would inevitably get hassled. I didn’t blame these touts and hustlers – work is scarce and there’s probably no softer touch than a stoned foreigner lost amidst the speeding rickshaws, cows, chai stalls and stick-wielding traffic police.

I learned to walk quickly and be brusque to shake them off. It was always the same: hashish? wanna see my silk shop? taxi?

As I was walking down one street, a young man sidled up to me.

“From what country?” he used as an opener.

I turned on him and hissed: “I don’t want to buy your hashish.”

His face twisted into a mask of righteous indignation. It was his turn to be angry.

” I am not selling any fucking hashish!” he barked. “All people here aren’t the same, you know.”

I was ashamed and embarrassed. Apologizing profusely I introduced myself and we spent 30 seconds exchanging pleasantries.

After a bit of a pause, he broke the silence. “Anyway, I’m selling handicrafts…”

****

That’s my dispatch from India so far. Maybe once this Bhopal project is over I’ll sneak a glimpse of the Taj Mahal or something equally touristy.

As an aside, I have noticed a lot of ads for ‘personality development’ courses. As it’s something I could probably never afford in the states, I may give it a try.

Sort of like getting discount-rate plastic surgery in the Philippines. What have you got to lose?

Jaco out

DELHI, India– I’ve never asked for money and I’m not gonna now. Rather this is about my occasional employer, Free Speech Radio News. http://fsrn.org

They’re the ones that gave me my first shot at international reporting from Georgia and for that I’ll be forever grateful.

http://www.fsrn.org/audio/south-ossetia-refugees-still-displaced/4678

http://www.fsrn.org/audio/newscast-friday-april-10-2009/4524

Now it seems they’re about to go belly-up. So as they’re teetering toward insolvency, I thought I’d lend ‘em a hand and blast out their appeal.

Those in Northern California hear their half-hour broadcast on weekday afternoons on KPFA; in New York it’s WBAI. They’re on more than 80 stations from what I understand and do some good work.

As they’re one of my primary sources of income abroad, I’ve taken a somewhat self interested interest in their ability to keep treading water. But it’s bad. They’ve cut our rates and suspended payments until at least next month. But they’re a worker-owned collective, not a private company so I’ll take them at their word that they’ll pay as soon as they can.

So here’s where you click…

http://tinyurl.com/SaveFSRN

Thank you and gawd bless.

Jaco out

BECHARRE, Lebanon – Hurtling down the highway at 140 kilometers an hour, Khaled the friendly taxi driver had an idea. We’d been drinking countless cups of black coffee and choking down innumerable cigarettes: it was time to switch to beer.

Khaled didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Arabic. But after a can of syrupy Turkish beer (9% abv) the language barrier wilted.

We were onto world politics and he was telling me what he thought about Osama bin Laden.

Earlier at the bus station, is cohorts were jokingly pointing to him and calling him “Bush.” As he was a bit portly I said he more resembled Cheney. A bearded guy showed up and was introduced as bin Laden.

This is Syria – where discussing and joking about politics is very light-hearted; provided it doesn’t touch on domestic affairs.

‘Cause they’re listening, you know.

But back to Khaled whose tongue by now had been thoroughly loosened by liquor.

“Bin Laden is no Muslim,” he said in Arabic. “Anyone who kills Jewish children is not a Muslim.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve checked in so perhaps I should explain how I came to having a conversation about Islamic ethics with a taxi driver who was drinking beer through a straw.

It was the Fourth of July when I crossed from Georgia into Turkey. It was bereft of traffic and I lodged in a tiny town in the Caucasian foothills. From there my itinerary took me through the heart of what is Turkish Kurdistan. The police presence is unbelievable given the simmering shooting war between the military and Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

I was couchsurfing (read: sponging off strangers from the internet) which afforded me diverse points-of-view. In one city, I lodged with a helicopter pilot who described coming under small arms fire or seeing rockets streaking past in his Black Hawk chopper.

In another town, I was sipping tea with the elderly father of my Kurdish host who made a pistol with his fingers every time a chopper flew overhead.

I practiced the art of listening and kept my trap shut.

Turkey was – and probably still is – fantastic. I felt for the ordinary Kurds living in the extreme southeast as it is in effect a military occupation. During one bus trip our vehicle was stopped, documents checked, luggage lightly examined, every 10 kilometers.

I listened to these people, young and old, clucking their tongues at the young conscripts from cities like Ankara, Istanbul, Mersin who cross-examined their reason for traveling from one town to the other.

They weren’t winning hearts and minds.

Pining for the Islamic Republic of Iran, I hitched to the Persian border. I had a half-baked idea to try and interview some Iranians about the street battles we’d all been hearing about. It was a Sunday and the only people about were Turkish truck drivers queuing and drinking tea and local Kurds crossing over.

I got a sunburn and free tea for my trouble, but it was worth it just to gaze up at the mural of the Supreme Leader Ayotallah Khomenei who beamed down benevolently. (I just hope the Islamic Revolutionary Guards are reading this and my obsequiousness will grease the wheels for a visa).

But I digress.

After managing to suppress the urge to visit Iraqi Kurdistan, my appetite for the Arab world was whetted by towns like Mardin with a healthy Arab-speaking population.

Soon I found myself sitting in a Syrian border guard’s air conditioned office watching him type entries from a ledger into an old PC. My crossing in 2005 had been a breeze which must’ve been a fluke as every other

American I’ve spoken to has since reported waiting hours.

This time I would be no exception.

Officially you’re supposed to pay $131USD in Washington D.C. for a Syrian visa. Officially.

Unofficially, Americans are more than welcome in Syria. In fact, U.S. passport holders pay one of the lowest fees – just $16USD. The only catch is our visit has to be approved in Damascus so waiting time is contingent on the length of the ministry’s lunch break.

In the end, I waited five hours. At first I was fired up with righteous indignation. But then I thought about how much Syrians have to go through to enter the U.S. and I decided to chill out and quit feeling sorry for myself.

After having my temperature taken by a doctor, presumably to see if I had the dreaded pig fever, I was cleared to enter. Darkness had fallen and the buses had stopped running. I angrily – and a tad rashly – brushed off a taxi driver’s offer to take me to the first town for $5 then $4USD.

As I trudged through the blackness in the Mesopotamian desert I realized that I had been perhaps a bit hasty. The lights of the next town were not as close as they first appeared.

Walking past a small house, there was a group of young men sitting around, shooting the breeze the way that Arabs seem to have mastered. They offered me to come over for a drink. I noticed there were no drinks but there was a motorcycle.

I asked a few questions and learned I’d  have six kilometers to drag my sorry ass.

The motorcycle was suggested. I offered $4USD. My rucksack and 200 lbs. of girth were strapped to the back of the aging 125cc moto and were off, hurtling through the darkness.

Despite voiding every insurance policy I’d have in the past, present or future, I arrived in one piece and was able to get a minibust to the ancient city of Aleppo.

It was good to be back. Not much had changed. President Bashar’s face still beams down from billboards, signposts, stickers and just about every imaginable surface reminding his countrymen what a strong leader they have. Some of the older buildings still have his father, Hejez Assad leering down and other places show them both, side-by-side, which intimates that if you cross the son, the father will rise from the grave and beat you down. No kidding.

I did touristy stuff. Castles, souqs, a bit of bargain shopping and a lot of eating. But the main attraction, I think, is still the people. Syrians are insanely friendly and hospitable. They are also very eager and curious to meet people from the United States.

It was edifying that the old “It’s an American! Feed him!” attitude hasn’t changed.

After scuttling the idea of taking a ferry to North Cyprus – it’s too expensive – I found myself at the bus station waiting for more passengers to fill up a shared taxi to Tripoli, a port city in northern Lebanon.

None were forthcoming and when Khaled – our aforementioned protagonist – offered a bargain, basement rate, I agreed and we were off.

I was glad of the beer as the border guards on both sides thoroughly fleeced me in “fees.” So much so that I fear I won’t be able to afford to leave Lebanon, enter Syria, exit Syria and enter Turkey again.

After crossing into Lebanon, I decided it was my round as Khaled had bought the last beers. I gave him 2,000 Syrian Pounds in crumpled notes and he stopped the car and darted across four lanes of traffic – twice – to return with more extra-strength lager.

Sipping my “Bear Beer” (8% abv)  through a straw, I knew I’d made the right choice.

More about Becharre and its Maronite environs when I’ve reconnoitered the place properly.

Jaco out

TBILISI, Georgia – My money was no good in this town. I was in Gagra in the northern edge of Abkhazia – that breakaway republic of Georgia that was once the jewel of the Soviet Union. Expansive beaches along the Black Sea and crumbling 19^th century hostelries and sanitariums dot the coast line that still attracts flocks of sunburnt Russian tourists seeking a cheap holiday away from Mother Russia.

My companions had to get back to Tbilisi but I wasn’t ready to leave. I’d spent almost the last of my Russian rubles but still had dollar reserves. That’s where the trouble lies. The one bank was closed and no one – and I asked half the town – wanted to change money.

I went back to the guesthouse and explained the situation. The landlady waved her hand dismissively and said I could stay another night – gratis. Fortunately I was able to fish out a $5 dollar bill which she accepted.

With 100 rubles ($3USD) left in my pocket I was able to maintain a slight beer buzz thanks to Baltika 7 – a strong Russian beer from St. Petersburg and maintain my blood sugar with the help of my old friend, canned fish and a crust of bread.

The next morning I thumbed it alone down the coastal highway. I had about 10 rubles left – that’s about 30 cents American — and my stomach rumbled. I stopped for a swim at a desolate Black Sea beach. Two men in parked cars eyed me as I splashed around in the warm, clear water that’s pleasantly not-too-salty.

I finished the swim and they called me over. They asked the usual questions about where I was from, what I was doing, where I was going. They were Abkhazians who lived in Russia but back visiting. They seemed amused that I was hitching alone. One handed me a 100 ruble bill. I refused thrice but on the fourth time accepted gratefully. In the next town I was able to cash it in for another Baltika 7 and what looked suspiciously like a Mingrelian khachapuri – a signature dish of the Abkhazians’ sworn enemy — but we all know that good food trumps nationalism.

Back in Sukhumi – the capital city – I pounded the pavement looking for something to be open. After an hour wandering from closed money changer to closed money change I found some taxi drivers willing to strike a deal on the hood of one of their taxis. At first the rate they offered was appalling. But after the usual theatrical walking away in disgust we settled on a fair rate and I was back in business with a fistful of rubles.

Soon dark clouds swept in and pummeled the town with a ferocious lightning storm. I huddled in the guesthouse after the city lost power and spent the early morning hours trying to fend off mosquitoes that had also decided to shelter from the monsoon.

It was back to work the next morning. I tried – albeit unsuccessfully – to interview UN observers at their luxurious compound south of town. Everyone suspected Russia would veto their mandate and I was trying to get my story. After 20 minutes wasted shooting the breeze with the Bengali peacekeepers outside, and a few curt telephone exchanges with a public information officer (a total misnomer as the guy gave no information and seemed to relish hiding from public view) I went to interview the Abkhazian Foreign Minister which proved to be quite interesting and turned into a brief radio report.

It was late afternoon and all transport south had finished so I started hitching. One of my first rides was with an enormous police officer in a gray camouflaged uniform with a single star. A major in the police force, his tiny automatic pistol was barely visible beneath his enormous gut. We hadn’t gone five kilometers when he suggested we stop for a drink. He had the gun and badge so I was in no position to argue.

We sat around drinking beer with one of his colleagues and some suspicious characters with a lot of gold jewelry. Some said they were cops. Others were circumspect. Criminals? I asked. They answered with a nervous chuckle. A guy walked past our table, bought a bottle of sickly sweet Ukrainian champagne and promptly disappeared. The others were understandably not interested in the champagne but the good major offered with such flourish I could hardly refuse. A bit light-headed we both got back into the car.

“What about the bill?” I asked.

“Ach! Leave that for the criminals,” he replied.

We proceeded barely 10 kilometers further to a police station and checkpoint. He had to work but would have a friend heading south to the next large town – Gali – in about an hour and I should wait, he said.

I walked past the checkpoint and the explained to the cops that I was hitching. They looked skeptical but offered no resistance so I continued walking. As the next car stopped at the checkpoint I could see the officers pointing toward me. They motioned me over. The cops had found me a lift, apparently.

It was a slick-black SUV and the driver spoke some English. I got a pain of homesickness as we weaved through a stand of Eucalyptus trees as the driver drained a bottle of Miller beer. It was a scene I’d lived many times in my native northern California.

I protested as he threw the bottle out the window.

“Abkhazia. It’s India. It’s Africa. Wooo! Woo! Woo!” he flopped his hand over his mouth in a crude Native American war-whoop. I tried to disguise my amusement.

I haven’t been to India. Yet. But one parallel are the sacred cows.

Wherever we went cows would sit in the middle of the road, chewing their cud lackadaisically as automobiles would scream by at 70 mph on either side. One driver explained that to hit a cow incurs an automatic $500USD payment to the farmer – no matter what. I made a point of practicing how to say sacred cow in Russian as a conversation piece.

He left me along a lonely road and I walked for more than an hour as the sank lower in the sky. I tried to keep my spirits up but was dismayed by the number of UN trucks and SUVs from international NGOs that refused to stop for me. Eventually I came upon another police checkpoint and the situation was repeated. The next car to arrive was instructed to take me as far as it could.

This time I was with a group of teenage boys. They tried to scare me with their fast driving and I made a point of not letting them get a rise out of me. One kept asking to see my passport but I refused. When they swerved down a side road my patience was at an end. I protested and when they didn’t stop, opened the door as if to jump. They stopped and I grabbed my bag and started walking back to the main road.

One of them grabbed me, again asking for the passport, but I shook him off violently and he backed down.

A black Mercedes and Land Cruiser sped by from the opposite direction and seeing me hit the brakes. They backed up quickly and about a half-dozen armed police jumped out. The same questions. Where was I from? What was I doing? They were incredulous that I was hitching alone down to Georgia – their enemy’s territory. They explained it wasn’t safe and that I would have to wait for transport. The questioning lasted about two minutes and soon it was back to bullshitting, backslapping and chewing sunflower seeds by the roadside.

A police jeep appeared and whisked me to Gali. We drove at breakneck speed and the cop in the passenger seat kept trying to “buy” my watch off me. I kept refusing. Then he pulled his revolver.

“What are you, a bandit?” I asked. He laughed. In retrospect, I think he was offering to trade.

An Abkhazian police officer’s service revolver would’ve made quite a souvenir. Hindsight is always 20-20.

We picked up some more police and continued down the road, avoiding the cows. One handed me his Kalashnikov rifle to hold which I cradled between my knees. He thought it hilarious but the commanding officer thought better and disarmed me.

After some cursory questioning at the Gali police station where my documents were copied, the cops took me to a taxi stand and instructed an elderly driver to take me to the border. He agreed to take me for a pittance and I realized it was largely out of police pressure. He was an ethnic Mingrel – a Georgian tribe that speaks its own language – and told me the cops sometimes hassled him. I felt sorry for him as he piloted his ancient Soviet-era Volga sedan over pitted roads in a rainstorm. So I tipped heavily before making a dash through the rain to reach the border guards’ hut.

Inside awaited a champagne reception. It was the same brand of sickly sweet Ukrainian champagne. They’d obviously started without me as one of the guards was slumped over the table with his head in his arms. They poured me a glass and I toasted to a free Abkhazia. And a free Georgia and in peace, I added as I left.

I made my way across the Ingur Bridge that separates the no-man’s-land between Georgia and Abkhazian territory. The Russians were inside their huts staying dry even as the downpour slowed to a drizzle.

On the Georgian side the soldiers were in mid-meal. In typical fashion they offered to share but I had a night train to catch, I told them. After a few cursory questions and them recording my name (incorrectly as “Jacob Alexander” - but I didn’t quibble) in a ledger, I was free to go. Soon I was boarding the night train to Tbilisi and leaving Abkhazia behind once again.

Jaco out

Little boxes, little boxes, Little boxes all the same There’s the green one and the pink one And the blue one and the yellow one And they’re all made outta ticky-tacky And they all look just the same… � Malvina Reynolds (sung by Pete Seeger, 1963)

TBILISI, Georgia � It all started out with the best of intentions. A local non governmental organization had purchased scores of native saplings to plant in a settlement for people displaced in the August war. Around 160,000 people fled their homes last summer during Georgia’s disastrous tangle with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.That added thousands of displaced families to the more than 200,000 internally displaced people from the wars of the early 1990s.

The latest wave has been �resettled� by the government in sprawling grids of concrete huts, many of which lacked even basic sanitation and are below international standards for housing refugees.

Erected on a floodplain off a major highway, Tserovani is more than 2,000 small structures that stands as a damning indictment for a failed policy toward the two breakaway regions. Painted in garish pastels, it’s nightmarish version of Levittown; it resembles an American suburb from a distance, but a closer look reveals something even worse. The roads are unpaved. There is little space between each house for a vegetable garden or anything useful. Many of these people had been rich farmers but now they are squeezed into a space without arable land and far from an urban center where they might find work.

I asked a Georgian architect for his opinion on this type of urban planning. �It’s a disaster,� he said. �It’s nothing but a show. To make it look like they are doing something.�

Our plan was to plant trees around some of these homes in what at best would be a beautification project. As a journalist, it would give me a chance to meet some of these people � and I hoped � conduct some interviews that I would be able to weave into my reporting.

Enter the government and their minions.

The day before our outing, two top apparatchiks � Environment Minister Goga Khachidze and Minister for Refugees and Accomodation Koba Subeliani � got wind of the day-out and decided it would be the perfect PR stunt. When we arrived the two men were surrounded by local camera crews as they drilled holes in the earth along a river bank planting conifers underneath power lines.

Our contact with the NGO was furious. We had meant to be helping the refugees beautify a kindergarten. But when the government showed up with their legions of young helpers, machinery and a media circus, most of the local people understandably hid in their homes. They wanted no part of an exercise that would suggest their government cared for their welfare. This was the same government that had tried to convince a German housing agency to provide fewer amenities � like running water and flush toilets � lest is would raise the expectations in settlements elsewhere.

We stood to the side drinking homemade wine from the hood of the truck while the environmental volunteers vainly pleaded with the government workers not to plant the trees beneath powerlines and in a grid that would resemble less of a park and more of a Christmas tree farm.

�I feel like I am part of some show,� one Georgian volunteer remarked bitterly as he swallowed a mouthful of his homemade wine.

A gaggle of refugees stood at the side watching the pageant. Their impressions filtered back to our group. This is a flood plain where cattle graze; the saplings won’t stand a chance.

After the ministers and their legions of green-vested helpers and television reporters who had enough tape to beam back to Tbilisi in time for the evening news � we went to work uprooting the poorly laid conifers and lending volunteers to refugees who were now venturing out of their huts and accepting help tilling their garden.

To our delight we discovered that some of the more enterprising refugees had stolen the better trees for their own use near the huts, so it wasn’t a total waste.

As a journalist the day was a bust. The presence of higher-ups and television cameras had ruined any chance for speaking to these people in a frank manner. But in the end we got plants in the ground and polished off a few liters of wine � which I consider a qualified success.

YEREVAN, Armenia — For an interrogation it seemed awfully genteel.
“We hope you go back to your country and tell everyone good things about Nagorno-Karabakh, that we want to be independent.”

These words came from a local primary school teacher commandeered by the police to translate while they held us for questioning.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. To understand why we were detained you have to understand what Nagorno-Karabakh is. Like all unrecognized republics its history is tragic.
Getting the visa in Yerevan could hardly have been simpler. A passport photo, a nominal fee and some cursory questions and we had permission to visit this former territory of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic whose ethnic Armenian population fought a bloody war of secession.

The conflict killed and displaced thousands over six years before simmering down in 1994. Today this beautiful backwater is only accessible by a winding highway paid for by the Armenian diaspora. The territory has since been ethnically cleansed of Azeris and Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in a state of undeclared war that continues to this day.

The two country’s armies continue to skirmish and and kill each other’s conscripts - a few at a time - along the mountainous frontier. This is the principle reason why you can’t place a telephone call from Armenia to Azerbaijan and the train between from Baku and Yerevan is only a memory dating back to Soviet times.

Visas in pocket, we began to thumb it out of Yerevan.� My traveling companion was a Spanish woman with similar misguided aspirations to be a foreign reporter. We got many lifts with rickety Ladas, Nivas and other Russian cars. The drivers were bemused by our lack of Russian language skills but all seemed sympathetic that we wished to hitch the 400 kilometers to Karabakh.

The road narrowed as snowy peaks rose from the valleys and we began to climb. Dusty villagers dressed in black cheerfully took us further into the interior. One Lada had its rear window spray-painted black, presumably because the driver couldn’t affort the tint-job.

Rain threatened as dusk set in. We still had at least 100 kilometers to go over the roughest terrain when a Japanese SUV stopped. The occupants were three architects from Yerevan on their way to present plans for a new open-air market in Karabakh’s former capital Shushi. All three spoke English - the Armenian raised in Iran spoke the best - and they agreed to take us all the way. Their musical tastes echoed mine and we raced through the darkness singing along to Jimi Hendrix’s “Catfish Blues.”

The next morning in Shushi we made our first contact with the plainclothes police. We had only walked across town to use the internet in the “state” controlled telecom building with the ominous-sounding slogan, “Karabakh Telecom: Always at Reach” when the cop flashed his identification.

Documents were shown and we left building trying to figure who had called the cops on us. In Stepanakert, a largish dusty town with a provincial air and little in the way of sights, we remained conspicuous.

Young Armenian men wear black leather, smoke slim cigarettes and have pointy shoes. Armenian women wear flashy fake leather and carry large handbags. With our dusty jeans and disheveled hair we received long stares that showed neither friendliness nor malevolence.

On a dusty side street and elderly man called to us to join him for coffee. We hesitated.

“??????????!” he implored.

We ascended a staircase into his two-room hovel. He dusted off the table to make tea and coffee and we proffered maple candy and Russian sweets we carried just in case. He went to the shop and came back with a small bottle of Armenian brandy. In broken German sprinkled with Russian, he explained that his three children all lived in Moscow. It was obvious he was bored and lonely so we chatted amiably about this-and-that.

He made a remark that I heard a lot in Armenia about how good the United States (and Spain) are because they are Christian countries. Muslims are fanatics, he said. Not all, I argued, and with a shrug he agreed. Yes, not all. I knew better to expect a people who had endured Civil War to break out in Koom-Bah Yaw and sing about brotherly love, yet it never ceases to depress me.

After wandering dusty streets for more than an hour we finally found our boarding house. The next day our destination was Aghdam, a former city that was completely razed by Armenian forces after the war to prevent its Azeri majority from ever returning. It lies on the buffer zone with Azerbaijan and, while not dangerous, is not something Armenians encourage tourists to visit. After hitching there we could see why.

The outskirts were an abandoned Azeri cemetery. Weeds and bushes pushed up between the Muslim headstones. It got worse

Every house, every building, everything had been systematically destroyed. We marveled at the attention to detail that must have gone into razing a city that used to be home to some 50,000 people.

We stood there not five minutes - mouths agape - when a blue BMW was a professional tint-job pulled up. At first glance the passenger wore a Marine marching band uniform, but no this was a Karabakh authority figure. The driver was plainclothes. Both wanted to see documents. We had no permission to be here, they explained. They pocketed our passports and drove us back to Askeran, a dusty town flanked by an ancient fortress outside of Stepanakert. I can’t say we were maltreated - the driver asked our permission before he lit a cigarette in his own car.

We were ushered into a dimly lit office. We waited quietly while they fetched the English teacher from the local primary school. Before the police inspectors returned I tried to warm her up.

You’re getting paid for this, right? I asked. She shook her head sadly. They really should be paying you, I insisted. We wanted the interpreter to be on our side.

It wasn’t a stretch to play the part of moronic tourists that had wandered astray. I explained to them that Aghdam is listed in a popular tourist guide called Lonely Planet and that we wanted to see it. I had read the Karabakh entry from a borrowed copy in Georgia.

“And this book you write- Lovely Planet - what will be its theme?” she asked.

I suppose I had overestimated her English skills and explained again. This satisfied them. They explained that Aghdam is in the buffer zone with Azeri forces and not safe for tourists. Funny, the farmer who had given us a lift hadn’t seemed concerned about safety.

They asked us our opinion on the conflict. Being a hayseed kid thousands of miles from home with little background in a long-running ethnic civil war, I didn’t take the bait. We both shrugged and looked at the door. They told us to go back to Stepanakert. They released us but only after deleting each and every photo I had hastily snapped from the back of their BMW.

Defiant, we didn’t leave immediately but instead scaled a ruined fortress. A local man told us there were no mines and we took him at his word, though as a precaution we didn’t stray from the visibly worn footpath leading to the summit.

The next day we hitched a lift with a jovial truck driver that took us the whole way from Stepanakert to Yerevan in his dusty Russian semi-truck. We nearly had to fight him to allow us to buy his lunch and it was a scenic eight-hour trip back over the twisty highway.

And that was that.

TBILISI, Georgia � Admittedly, I’ve developed somewhat of a penchant for quasi-independent nation states. In my school years, I was an enthusiastic Northern California secessionist and have long harbored ambitions of one day starting my own country. What better way to educate myself than to see how it’s worked out breakaway republics like Transinistria near Moldova and Abkhazia on the northern frontier with Georgia.

The name Abkhazia may may sound familiar � Georgia fought a brief but bloody war with the Russian Federation over this territory and South Ossetia last summer � but that wasn’t the reason I wanted to visit.

Its capital, Sukhumi, was once one of the most pleasant spots in the whole USSR and a popular vacation destination for Soviet elites. Getting there appeared straightforward enough, despite the official warnings of trigger happy militias, bandits and heavily armed Russian �peacekeeping� troops.

It all started with an email to the Abkhazian Republic’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Two days later, I received a letter that I would show the Abkhazian authorities that would grant me passage to Sukhumi where I could apply for my visa.

A night train took me across Georgia to Zugdidi which is now home to thousands of displaced people from the series of wars that Abkhazia has fought with Georgia since the early 1990s. It was still dark in the early dawn hours and weary passengers stepped off the platform as a steady rain fell that shown in the headlights of waiting taxis and minibuses. Elderly men and women clamored into a blue Mercedes diesel which the driver told me would take us to the Ignuri Bridge � the only land crossing into Abkhazia with Georgia.

Paranoia had gotten the better of me. Tales of banditry, suspicion of non-Russian foreigners or the resumption of armed conflict had led me to stuff dollars into my sock. With no consular representation� in Abkhazia, I would be in a tough spot if I lost both my passport and my money.

We motored off through the darkness winding on a narrow pothole filled road and minutes later arrived in the Inguri River valley. Concrete barricades on both sides block all but a narrow passage for vehicles. The only ones I saw crossing were white United Nations trucks delivering food aid or shuttling international bureaucrats.

The men, women and children from the minibus gathered their belongings and began the half-mile walk across the famous Inguru Bridge. A plaque in Georgian and Russian tells of its construction � in 1948 by German POWs � which extends over the vast river delta from which a chorus of frogs sang in the darkness. A giant sculpture of a pistol with its barrel tied in a knot faces Abkhazia in a bizarre and cynical nod to the spate of hostilities between the Georgians and Abkhazians. I’d like to know who commissioned it.

Out of the darkness came the sound of two coconut shells being banged together. A cart being pulled by the skinniest horse � at first I mistook it for a foal � passed by. With motorized access limited, this enterprising cart driver ferried passengers too lazy or infirm to walk themselves.

The Abkhazian border guards were dressed in green camouflage fatigues and spoke only Russian. Locals offered them gifts of phone cards and small denominations of Russian rubles and I felt like an idiot having forgot to bring anything that could pass as tribute aside from my camera or a $20 bill.

Seeing my blue passport and clearance letter, the guards explained that they’d have to make some phone calls. I sat down to read and watched the bored guards literally drive around the post in circles while I admired the bullet holes that had been riddled through their hut’s tin roof. Outside it rained but the strafing had been limited so I stayed dry.

Nearly an hour later � after the minibus driver got sick of waiting for me and left - I was cleared to enter and walked on the other side. The Abkhazian banner with its green stripes and red hand welcomed me and I sat in an empty minibus waiting for enough passengers to make the short trip economical for the driver to take us to the first town of any size, Gali.

Gali was a ramshackle market town that’s home to a mix of refugees and displaced people. I didn’t linger long enough to get the story. I caught a minibus headed for the capital. We came into Sukhumi which was very attractive with its white washed palatial buildings and palm trees � and even eucalyptus � that thrive in the Caucasian subtropical climate. The town wasn’t as big as I’d reckoned and before I knew it we were heading north. I quizzed my fellow passengers in a mix of sign language and pidgin Russian. Yes, Sukhumi was back there they told me.

Stop pajalsta! I blurted to the driver. I paid and got out. The rain began to fall and I was a good two or three miles north of town. I walked along the highway with my thumb out as Mercedes and BMWs with tinted windows sped past.

Before long a silver-haired man in a Lada sedan stopped for me and I climbed in. He said he spoke a little English � but soon I realized that wasn’t true. I showed him my clearance letter and explained that I was due at the ministry for my visa. He proceeded to drive me around town until we found the building. He refused a proffered 50 ruble bill brusquely and I had to force him to accept some maple candy and Ukrainian caramels as a gift.

The ministry building was spartan and efficient. Trim and attractive young women walked the hall ways as I stood waiting for my visa to be processed. I excused myself to go to the toilet so I could fish out some dollars to pay the $20 fee. The process was straightforward enough and I later found out that I had been handed my visa by none other than the deputy foreign minister of Abkhazia.

As I had put my profession as journalist I was directed to the Abkhazian Press Agency to register. I expected a grilling but instead was served tea and the closest thing I got to a grilling was the quizzical stares from one of the press agency woman’s toddler son.

Outside I met up with a Spanish woman I’d met on the Black Sea ferry to Georgia who had waxed lyrical about the wonderful absurdities of Abkhazian and convinced me to visit. Like me, she was trying to make a go of doing some freelance journalism. Having just been fleeced and then lied to by her interpreter � who she later realized was in the employ of the Abkhazian government � she was fed up with trying to get a story during her visit. The weather was fine so we caved in and turned the visit into a Black Sea holiday walking the long promenades and sampling the tourism infrastructure that normally only caters to Russians.

The people were very friendly and more than a little surprised to see a Western European and American making a holiday in Abkhazia. About a third of the cities stately buildings were vacant. Some obviously from the war of the early ’90s while others seemed the victim of economic stagnation.

Two days later, I convinced the Spaniard to save $70 in taxi fare by hitching back to Georgia with me. We walked southward and caught and electric trolley bus headed several miles out of town. When it ran out of cable and began to turn around we alighted and started to hitch. Two out of three of our lifts were with armed members of the Abkhazian military but they kept their weapons holstered and shared their cigarettes so no complaints there.

Crossing back into Georgia was a breeze. There was a few cursory questions and the Abkhazians caught me photographing the scenic mountain panorama that had their defensive positions in the foreground. After I duly deleted the offending shots they let me pass and we were back in Georgia proper. After delightfully spicy meal in Zugdidi, we caught a night train back to the capital.

For visiting a supposedly war-torn and lawless area, things were remarkably well ordered and civilized. I am happy to report things have gone swimmingly which has been great for me � though likely dull for the readers of this dispatch. Ho hum.

Jaco out

ODESSA, Ukraine � It was the most pathetic shake down attempt I’d ever witnessed.

It wouldn’t be a bribe, they explained, but I must pay money if I wanted to leave the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.

�In Transdniestria must give– give geld!� the border guard insisted in a mix of tongues.

I’d been told to prepare myself for such a ritual if I ventured into Transnistria, a curious Russian-speaking territory that brought a brief but violent war of secession in 1992 that’s led to de facto independence of a strip of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine.

Unrecognized by every nation except Russia, this renegade province runs its own affairs in every respect � it even prints its own rubles � which a Transnistrian I’d met observed has the same exchange rate as a paper napkin � absolutely nil.

I’d made a Swiss friend in L’viv, Ukraine who’d been shaken down for 10 euros, a tidy sum in this part of the world. I was determined not to suffer the same fate. The border guards continued to finger my passport.

Where did I intend to travel to after Ukraine?

Georgia � Gruzija � across the Black Sea, I replied.

Ah, you’re a journalist! they insisted. No, just a tourist. For a second I felt the flash of shame I experience whenever I fib. Then I realized that I was telling the truth; I am unemployed, and this realization depressed me.

I’d spent the past three days in Moldova proper. Its capital city, Chisinau, was the birthplace of my great, great grandfather but the zealous Hassidic Jews I’d met at the last working synagogue said they couldn’t help with any insight on the family for any less than 200 euros. Still, it’d been a curious mix of discoth�que drinking with Moldovan ex-commandos, picking through the ruins of a Yeshiva with some vodka-scamming workmen and generally ogling at the disparity of wealth between the German-car driving elite and the destitute in one of the poorest nations in Europe.

But no visit to Moldova would be complete without the visit to Transnistria � unrecognized by all even its principle benefactor, the Russian Federation � which boasts Soviet-era marble busts of Vladimir Lenin that stand watch in front of public buildings.

I’d made arrangements to meet up in Tiraspol (�the capital�) with a 21-year-old woman that I’d contacted through an internet hospitality forum. I sat with this fellow �CouchSurfer� as she explained her frustration of living in a republic that has purposefully isolated itself from the rest of the world. That didn’t mean she had any illusions about western nations being a beacon liberal freedoms. To her western media � even supposedly objective voices like the BBC � are propaganda machines for western powers.

As a press officer for government ministers she is part of the local machine that puts a positive spin on the doings of local officials. Her job sounded no different than any other public information officer one finds in the United States. But she’s sick of it and is also working with a non-governmental organization to work with her counterparts from other European nations. Her initiative and pluck has already landed her at least one �interview� with the internal security folks. She didn’t go into much detail on that except that it wasn’t a pleasant experience and I didn’t press the issue further.

There were obviously limits to the state’s repression as she blew off a meeting with local officials to sit in a cafe in the middle of the afternoon with a visiting foreigner.

We bid farewell and I caught a marshutka � minivans that run short- and long-distance trips between towns � back to Ukraine and it was at the border between Transnistria and Ukraine that I found myself the target of a half-hearted attempt at extortion.

They kept fingering my passport and trying to explain that I had to pay them. Something. Anything.

�Tran-zit,� I insisted. My plucky Tiraspolian friend had told me to stick firm; that I didn’t owe these guys a red cent if I stayed less than 24 hours. I just kept repeating the word �tran-zit� until the lead one began to look tired.

�Good luck,� he said as he handed back my passport. I exhaled with relief and stifled a triumphant smirk � or at least tried to.

Back in the marshutka or, as I like to call them, Moldovan limousine, vodka had been purchased. To a kindly looking passenger, I strung together half of my Russian vocabulary into a single sentence in a lame attempt to ask which bus station we would arrive at in Odessa.

He cut me off. �Maybe I can help you with something?� he said in rather good English.

The next hour was spent shooting vodka and talking about how nice it is that the Cold War is finally over. My English-speaking chum, a retired merchant seaman from Siberia, and an ex-cop from Ukraine and I made short work of the vodka as our limousine lumbered through the darkness toward Odessa.

Two hours later I was in full tourist-mode, running up the famous Potemkin Steps.

Never a good idea with a bellyful of Russian vodka and Transnistrian brandy � as I soon learned.

Jaco out

Our story so far: After three relatively glorious years in Saranac Lake, New York the author liquidated many of his assets and set off back into the world to claim his fortune � or at least stave off boredom as he enters his thirties. After a grueling pace of travel that took him through a half-dozen European countries, the author finds himself in Ukraine where the adventure begins as he makes his way east.

CHERNIVTSI, Ukraine � After elicited a blank look of stupid incomprehension that has become my signature expression as I travel east, the Slovak border guard switched to English.

�For what purpose do you travel in Ukraine?� she asked.

�Tourist,� I offered lamely.

Nearby, a leather-clad Russian who looked like he could be Vladimir Putin’s scruffy nephew guffawed with derisive laughter. There was about a dozen of us bus passengers queuing along the Slovak-Ukrainian frontier on the furthest fringe of ‘Fortress Europe.’

Did I mention it was snowing in the bus? I mean inside the bus it was snowing. While the sour-faced driver sucked his life away on cigarettes, us passengers sat with teeth chattering as snow poured from the overhead vent. A kindly faced Ukrainian woman sitting across from me gave me an apologetic smile which I interpreted as ‘It’s not usually snowing in the buses.’

Twenty minutes later the bus rolled into Uzhhorod, a bustling border town that prospers as a trade center on the doorstep of the EU.

The first thing I notice are the dogs. Scruffy dogs everywhere. There are no dog catchers in Ukraine so these half-tame, half-wild creatures are denizens in their own right. Some roam solo, others in packs of three or four. A few pairs stick together. All walk with a swaggering purpose and look both ways before they cross a busy street. These canines were streetwise. They weren’t wild enough to look fearsome yet you know better than to try to pat them on the head.

The crumbling Austro-Hungarian architecture is impressive though many of the 17^th century buildings have been renovated into building supply shops � presumably for thrifty Poles and Slovaks who cross the the border to buy linoleum and plumbing supplies.

Another notable feature was the teenage girls dressed like go-go dancers who walked with an air of confidence � making eye contact with strangers on the street � that was a marked contrast from the reserve of young people I’d grown accustomed to in Slovakia and Austria.

After several hours later on a Soviet-era train that was remarkably comfortable � each wagon featured a drop down shelf with a bedroll and clean sheets - I was in L’viv, the cultural capital of western Ukraine. I’d prearranged to stay with some strangers-from-the-internet and my hosts took me to a Ukrainian nationalist partisan theme-bar for dinner. Costumed guards ask for the �password� (�Heroes of Ukraine!�) before allowing patrons to descend into a subterranean dining room where militia-uniformed women brought us mushroom soup and a honey liquor that reminded me of mead in that we drank out of tin cups, partisan-style.

What follows was three packed days in the city that was surprisingly free of harrowing ordeals and therefore not worth writing too much about. There was the trip to the banja � a traditional sauna in which you beat yourself with oak branches to cleanse the skin; a drinking bout with a hostel owner that ended with us retreating from an all-night cafe bar after a loquacious bar patron inexplicably smashed a window with his fist (then, to his credit, immediately offered to pay for the damage); and general delight of losing oneself in a country where everything is written in a foreign alphabet in which I can read with the proficiency of a first grader.

A night-train brought me to Chernivtsi � an ancient town that’s been traded back and forth between Romania, Ukraine and so forth � and after a night spent in a vacant hostel there’s an early morning to Moldova where things, I have been promised, should get really weird.

Jaco out

SARANAC LAKE, New York — Back in June I wrote about getting popped - twice - in Canada. The first time was by a CN railcop in the Charny yard outside Quebec City on my way to Halifax. Second arrest was in St. Leonard, New Brunswick after my 48′ container car was flooded by a dozen dreadies just as the train pulled outta’ Halifax.

They were climbing the stacks and waving at school buses to it seemed inevitable that we’d eventually get collared. We did. CN stopped the train and RCMP cops pulled us off and dumped us about a mile from the Trans-Canada highway.

While the Quebecoise gendarmes cashed my $141CAN fine some months ago, I’d been playing phone-tag with the RCMP corporal who busted us to get a copy of the group photo he’d taken of us. He told the photo had been accidentally erased (yeah, right) but then went on to inform me that he was working on getting me my money back.

Excusez-moi?

Well, he explained in his French Acadian accent, it seemed the tickets had been written improperly. They wrote us up for a provincial crime on a federal ticket (or vice versa) and so he asked the station commander to refund my money.

Today a brown envelope arrived in my post box. As long as the Canadian post office is willing to cash the money order, I’ll soon have $100CAN and the best part is, the Canadian dollar has increased in value. So, my $100CAN money order which cost me about $93USD earlier in the summer, is now worth about $98.60USD and is increasing…

Not a bad investment, eh?

Jaco out