I apologize in advance to my readers for temporarily abandoning the story of my return trip from Asia, not respecting for once the chronology of events. Fact is that, while having moved to live in Istanbul a month ago, three news arrived from Italy in the short span of 7 days have struck my attention and I believe they deserve an immediate comment. 1) Clemente Mastella. Sunday, June 7th, was elections day for the European parliament. Like the vast majority of European citizens, I didn't vote. The overall voter turnout was 45%. Low. In the UK 35%, in Poland as low [View Full Entry]

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I'm an optimist who's continually forced to come to terms with reality. When I was still in Thailand my plan was to travel overland to Italy. No planes. And so I -in great solemnity- ripped my return ticket to Rome off, a burgeous symbol, and set in motion, well, with imagination more than in reality. I was (still only in my imagination) in Tibet when I realized that those high mountains are simply too cold in February (if you get physically there, I mean). And so here comes Plan B: a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka, OK, a small concession to [View Full Entry]

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Sri Lanka keep offering me only gifts directly sent by the Lord himself. In the past it had been described to me as a lot of hassle, persistence and intrusiveness. In hindsight I must confess that I can’t disagree more with such description. Sinhalese people seemed to me wonderfully generous men, not at all intrusive, less than less aggressive. Climbed down from the Adam’s Peak, I wanted to go to Kandy. I’d even bought the ticket, but while I was at Hatton station taking some pics of a train that was about to leave towards east, an old man with a [View Full Entry]

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Sri Lanka had welcomed me with that mix of hospitality and embarrassment of those who, peaceful by nature, found themselves with a rifle in hand and do not understand why. Negombo Airport was armoured and Colombo city centre was constantly combed by agents (uniformed and not) looking for potential bombers. Only in Israel, I guess, I’ve seen more weapons around. But people here -contrary to what happens in Israel- keep smiling. As to say: no bomb can kill a positive philosophy of life! My not too cautious, little plausible, not at all wise attempt to cross the virtual boundary line tha [View Full Entry]

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If you're reading this you probably belong to one of the following categories: (a) You are a friend of mine or family member; (b) You are Samantha Fox; (c) You are someone who regularly reads my blog; (d) You are a male, aged 30 - 35, who hasn't got anything better to do right now (you're probably at the office pretending to work) and have just googled for "Samantha Fox". A few words of introduction for the benefit of those belonging to categories A and C born after 1980. Samantha Fox was in the end of the 80s the sexy icon [View Full Entry]

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After 10 Robinson Crusoe-like weeks, the need for doing, going, seeing had become untenable. I hence said goodbye to what had been my home during seventy days and to its (very few) tenants. Mimi, 4 years old little angel, gave the impression of being in that moment the saddest child in the world. She was losing her patient games' companion and looked as if with my departure I had just violated a tacit pact of eternal friendship. My life has always been that way: the farewells moment sooner or later arrives. I stopped in Chumphon for one day. I didn't feel [View Full Entry]

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According to a survey conducted by Project Gutenberg and based on 30 million words used in cinema and literature, the three most common words in the English language are You, I and to. If, instead of thousands of movies and books, had the research been carried on using Ya (the bungalows' keeper of the place where I'm lodged on Ko Chang)'s english as basis, the results would have been surprisingly different. After ten weeks on the island I've come to understand that Ya is a minimalist. Not in the philosophical or artistic meaning of the word, but in the plain, literal [View Full Entry]

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I don't think I've ever been keen on an exciting life and all the emotions experienced in recent years came circumstantially, while looking for something else. I've never considered working as something necessary to prove that I exist, and for the same reason I never felt the need to over-commit my spare time (and working the bare minimum I really have lot of it). The mere thought of a prolonged productive working routine loaded with stress tires me, and so it tires me (physically, I mean) only hearing stories of action holidays and travels: "We did paragliding, then we moved inland [View Full Entry]

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The last five days of this long cycling tour slipped away uneventfully. After the disastrous Maribor day my mood was not at its best and feeling, on the other hand, the arrival so close to me simply pushed me to pedal harder. I expected a more difficult terrain, instead only near Postojna I had to do some climbs worthy of note. The last real effort for this year, then it was all downhill to Trieste (the last kilometer down a hair-rising slope). Then two days of usual Italian traffic. Then Venice, and my seventhousandthirtythird (and last) kilometer ride. During these [View Full Entry]

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I will remember Thursday, October 23rd as the worst day of this 2008 tour. I cycled for over an hour on the national road number 3 with an endless row of trucks (mainly Hungarian) continuously overtaking me just centimeters away from my body. My own safety constantly at stake. After about twenty kms, the road turned into a motorway, a relief for me, so at least I had a meter across in the emergency lane all for myself. But the joy was short-lived: a police patrol stopped me after a few kilometers, same as it had happened in the Czech Republic, [View Full Entry]

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