Kabul Sightseeing

Oh, today was a great day!!
We only had two meetings booked as it is a semi holyday (tomorrow it is Nawroz and the birthday of the prophet), first a lunch meeting with a NGO, then at five, another meeting. Between that I was trying to get a meeting with someone I met in Mazar, but as he did not pick up, I had a gap in the schedule the whole afternoon. My colleague had caught a cold and felt he could not attend the first meeting and asked if it was ok that I went on my own, which it of course was. As the meeting was with a NGO they had far less security restrictions and that felt really refreshing. And as the persons I was meeting was one Afghan man and a Tadjik woman it felt very natural and relaxed. After the meeting in their office they invited me for lunch in the Serena Hotel. That was also very nice. After the shootings there in January, internationals seem to avoid the place, but it was nice to see it and it is a very nice hotel, a world apart from the life outside the walls. Since the shootings they have rebuilt the entrance and now it is basically a fortress!


Kabul Serena Hotel


After lunch the lunch they offered to take me back to the guest house, but I already had other plans in mind than going back to sit there the rest of the day so I called my own driver. First I asked him to take me to the Safi Landmark as I knew there it would be a cash machine and I needed to withdraw some more money. He let me off outside the entrance and said he would park around the corner. I thought the Safi Landmark was just a hotel that had a cash machine in the lobby, but it turned out to also be a quite modern shopping mall! Very surprising! I had to walk quite a bit into the mall and then I started questioning whether this was a smart thing; walking all alone in a shopping mall to get money, quite a lot of money, that I would have to carry with me all alone again. But it felt safe and I was very aware of whom and what was moving around me. Unfortunately this made me not look into the shops very much. Had I known this was a shopping mall, I would have planned for staying on a while. When I came out I did not see the car and the driver, which made me a little nervous; I mean there are people being robbed after having withdrawn money in Sweden too! But then I saw him just a bit further down the street and walked there. Well walked and walked, more zig zaging between cars and jumping over puddles and deep ditches. Anyhow this started get me going and once in the car again I asked the driver if we could go for a trip somewhere nice and still safe.

He seemed to think this was a good idea and suggested the TV-hill. That is a hill in the middle of the city from where you have a fantastic view over the whole city. That was fantastic!


On the way up to TV hill.


The old city wall climbing up the hills over the Kabul river.


View from the tv-hill.


As the hill is basically in the centre of ths city you have views in all direcions.








From there we went to the Old Town, through very narrow “streets” lined with market stalls and people preparing for the holiday parties tomorrow.

I realised I was probably violating a million security regulations and recommendations, I was out on my own, in an un-armoured car, with a driver I do not know very well (but trusted!) driving in areas I don’t know, getting caught in crowds and traffic jams and also carrying quite a lot of money on me (of which the driver was aware!). But I felt safe!! I felt much safer going through the crowded market with people everywhere than driving past the heavily fortified ISAF-HQ.



On the streets of Old Kabul






The people that we met and that we had some interaction with, seemed very nice and did not mind a lonely foreign woman coming around. In the old town we left the car and entered into some narrow alley. It was rather dirty and smelly; you could see the open sewers running across the path. My guide showed me a tomb of two people, he could not really explain who they were, but I understood it as it being a man and a woman that were in love but somehow were killed and now people went there to pray and my driver, who is a trained designer told me that he and his teacher had made the decorations in the ceiling. There was also another tomb next to this one but that one was only for women so I had to go in alone.

It was all a rather moving experience. At the same time as we were there an old woman was also there. When I first saw her, she was sitting in the stair and shivering, I thought she was sick or “mad” but when she managed to get up I saw she was so badly bent she made a 90 degree angle. This is a very poor part of Kabul, very far from the Serena hotel! A young boy was handing out dried chick peas and sultanas. At first he did not give any to me, but then someone said something to him and very shy and blushing he gave me some. I said “tashakhor” and he blushed even more. My driver explained those are alms that they give out because they pray for something special. Again I was in one of those culturally and socially sensitive moments. An extremely poor person gives something edible to me, who am just so much more affluent than him, and in this case as an alms. There was no way I could refuse to accept that and also it would be very rude to not eat it and throw it away. At the same time I was thinking about the open sewers just outside. I ate one pea and one sultana as the boy saw and then on the way out of the tomb and on the way into the other I asked the driver to hold them for me under the pretence I needed both hand to remove my shoes before entering the tomb. Good eh!?

After that we went up a couple of other hills and saw a few cemeteries and I learned that those are popular pick nick sites for the Nawroz celebrations, especially the one close to the lake; Shohada-ye Salehin. This could have been an absolutely stunningly beautiful place with the high mountains in the background over the lake, were it not for the amount of dirt and rubbish in the water. We saw the old citadel and the grave of the old king and the Gazni stadium and the buzkashi ground. When I was told about the buzkashi ground I told my driver I like horses and used to ride a lot. Then he said “come, let’s have a look at the horses” and turned the car into a winding dirt track behind some buildings, I think it was stables. On the ground behind the stables there were some people practising buzkashi!!

I got completely excited! I never thought I would get the chance to see that and here I was on the training ground of the Kabul team!!


It was so fascinating! I could have stayed there a long time and watch.

Had it not been for the fact that we had another meeting and that I would not have time to go back and change clothes before the meeting I most probably would have accepted the offer made by some of the managers sitting on the side watching the game.


When they heard I could ride a horse they offered me to borrow one and one of the men was already on his way into the stable to get one for me before I could say that I will have to come back and try that. Just imagine how cool wouldn’t that be! To ride a buzkashi horse in Kabul!! I am not sure I would be able to manage one and I would most definitely not join the game, but it would have been cool just to have a try to ride one!! This was a great after noon!! I think the driver also liked it as he offered me to go somewhere tomorrow too, before he takes us to the airport. We’ll see what we can manage. It could get a bit messy tomorrow as it is a big holiday.

This evening we had dinner in a restaurant on town, which was also nice. The food at the guest house is very nice, but it is just nice to get out some too and see some other sides of the town.

Kabul Lives..

I am now back in Kabul again. It feels good to be able to take a good proper shower and to be able to close the door behind you for some privacy, but at the same time I kind if liked to be on the camp and it almost felt a little bit sad to leave, I can imagine what it feels like for those who stay there for six months.

It is a bit frustrating though not to be able to go out more. A part from our meetings I haven't been anywhere on the town. And that there are a very different side was just shown to me on the tv. I guess the program is still running, but we just had a power black out so I can not see it. Anyway, it was a program on Al Jazeera (fantastic channel!!) on heroin addicts in Kabul. Because not only is Afghanistan the worlds biggest producer ob heroin (opium) but the number of users has increased a lot the last couple of years.

I guess the life of heroin addicts living on the street is not very nice anywhere, imagine that what it looked like in a place like Kabul... It was truly horrible pictures, so depressing.

The whole trip here has been very rewarding. We have met a lot of interesting people and recived a lot of information and input. At the same time it is depressing and a bit discouraging. I never thought anything here would be easy, but still... where the hell to start?!?

Security Matters

It is diffucult to say how safe or how dangerous Afghanistan is. Generally I don't feel insecure or afraid here and all the security measures mostly feels annoying and irritating. But on the other hand, it felt a bit scary when we on our way to the airport passed the crater in the road where a suicide bomb killed seven people the day before.
And yesterday I was asked if I wanted to join one of the Swedish MOTs on a patrol to three villages together with the commanding officer, which I of course agreed to as it was a bit frustrating to be stuck at the camp and not seeing anything and would be very interesting to get out and see something else. But at the morning brief just before we should take off, we were informed about a Dutch NGO being shot at not so far away and onw person got killed. The MOT had to change their plan and go to the police instead and we stayed in the camp. It is so tragic.
Today we went back to Kabul and on the way from the aiport I was considering the modus operandi of the attackers and thought about how easy it would be for a MC to drive up next to us and just shoot into the car and, we were not in a armoured car.
At the same times it feel so wrong to isolate one self from everyting around and how can the international commonity ever win the respect and confidence of the people that way? But how can you do any proper work if you risk being killed any time? It is a real catch 22 situation..

In Mazar

Now moved up north to Mazar e Sharif. If I thougt Kabul was dusty, that is nothing against what it is like here, and then we are not even in the dry season!!

I have not been able to see much of the place as we are staying in the Swedish PRT camp and having our meetings here, but we did go out on a patrol around the area this morning. It was a quite surreal experience (as most things here are!). We were walking with four armed Swedish guards, one armed German guard and a bunch of Icelandic journalists and representatives from the Icelandic foreign ministry. That of course caused quite a commotion when we came to a school. There we were invited to go in by the headmaster.

The kids went wild. So wild that another headmaster or teacher started throwing small stones on the kids to get them back into school again!!
This was a school for both girls and boys although they went at different times (boys in the morning and girls in the afternoon) but it is clear that the segregation and differntiation between the sexes starts at an very early age. The girls were clearly thought to stay in the background!! Sad...



Some kids were more keen on being in the fore ground than others. This little boy wanted me to take his picture. I did. Once.



But then he kept coming back.



And even if I actually wanted to take a photo of something else, he just showed up in the picture anyway...



In the end he seemed to be everywhere...

The Panjshir Valley

Had a very interesting day going up the Panjshir valley today.


It was really a very complex and strange feeling. The valley is extremely beautiful, it was now only starting to get a little green and we saw some cherry blossoms and other flowers, but in a couple of weeks it will most probably be absolutely stunningly beautiful.


The high snow covered mountains of the Hindu Kush in the background, the bubbling stream along the winding road, steep slopes falling down almost horizontally into the valley, every somewhat flat area covered with clay buildings and terraced fields. In the villages the road are lined with small shops and markets and people everywhere, although it is somehow difficult to understand how they can survive there.

At the same time this is one of the areas where the fighting between the Soviet and the mujaheddin was most severe. This is the land of the Lion of the Panjshir, of Ahmad Shah Massoud.


Every where you see pictures of him, on shops, on cars, on the walls of houses and it is here you find his tomb that is a site of pilgrimage for many Afghanis still. At the same time others of course see him as a slaughter.

In the middle of all the serene beauty there are loads of carcasses of old soviet tanks.


They are everywhere, in the fields and in the river, sometimes they are used as road fill or road support!

Completely absurd! And often you see men, and young children carrying guns. We stopped at a small town along the road to buy some kebab and naan and to use the facilities (that is a hole in the ground within clay walls closed off with a wooden door that was about to fall in any time). While stopping there we took a short walk for some 50-100 metres. A bit further up the river we spotted a young boy, maybe 12 years old with a gun. Then we thought it might be a good idea to turn back to the cars. But the boy was coming closer and after a while was circling around the car, sometimes pointing his gun. It made us a little nervous. Later we could confirm that it was actually an air gun, but it is really hard to tell from a distance and especially in a country where guns are so abundant. On the way we passed shops making and selling guns.

Somehow you could feel the history here. Only the names, Panjshir valley, Hindu Kush etc are so loaded with mystery and magic, so often heard of in reports of war and politics. And knowing that this is such an important pass through the Hindu Kush that already Alexander the Great used in his conquests. At the same time it is hard to imagine how any mechanised army could come up with the idea to try to occupy a country like this one.



The local holiday past time; walking and rocking the rope bridge.

One additional perspective to our trip was the two very different background of our two drivers. The one being tajik from the area, being very happy to go here and for whom Massoud seemed to be a big hero. The other one a pashtun, who also had spent some time in the area, but then fighting on the Soviet side. That was the man driving the car I was in and he seemed cool about being there again and did not mind talking about it, but it is hard to know what is going on inside and it was difficult for us to know if it was ok to talk and ask about this when they both were around. It is indeed a complex country.

First Day in Kabul

So now I survived my first whole day in Kabul!
Well I suppose that is nothing one should joke about. Already at breakfast we were told by the staff at the guest house that there had been a suicide attack at the airport road. The attack was directed towards an US army convoy, but killed nine civilian Afghans. Of cause the airport road is a popular target, that is the only road to and from the airport and that is where all the westerners go every now and then. True to the general trend this suicide attack took place early in the morning. It is horrible to say, but maybe I should be grateful that it happened today. That might make it less likely that it will happen already again in Saturday (in the morning!) when we are off to Mazar or any of the other days we will be travelling to and fro the airport.

Despite this I strangely do not feel insecure here. Of cause I don’t really believe that is in my nature to feel insecure from outer threats and of cause you can not think about the risk of you being blown to pieces any minute, but I did not feel uncomfortable. The thing I felt the most though is the stress that the insecure situation cause. Everywhere there are guards, armed with automatic weapons and you see a lot of heavily armed police and some military and there are plenty of road blocks and check points that I can imagine get rather annoying after a while. There are a nervousness in the air, everyone seem to get nervous if the car stops a little too long and if you hold a little too long outside a certain building or take up the camera in the wrong place. The most surreal thing though is actually the huge amount of those gigantic white armoured Land cruisers rushing along the narrow and crowded streets. They look so absurd in this setting they could just as well come from another planet. I am actually glad we don’t have one and as I thought we have not been wearing the flak jackets!

It is not advisable to go out to take photos in the street so I wanted to try to get some snapshots from the car, but as our driver is trained in defensive driving he does everything to avoid stopping which made making pictures very difficult. One of our meetings was a little bit out of the city, there we could stop and take a short walk and even take some pictures of the old bombed out royal palace, but still you had to be careful because there are obviously some ISAF offices near by and they might think you are photographing them. The whole area around the castle, except the newly built ministry buildings, was completely levelled to the ground. My colleague told me this used to be a part of the city, but a part that has been completely destroyed. When he was here in 2003 there were still all ruins, but they are now removed.

You still see a lot of ruins in the city, but it is difficult to tell if they are destroyed by war, fighting or just very poorly built. The surrounding hills are completely jotted by small brick boxes climbing the slopes. I don’t want to think about what they would look like after an earthquake! The general impression of the city, apart from the weird security stress, is poverty, sandy colours and dust, a lot of dust, and then I can imagine this is still nothing compared to what it is like in the midst of summer. I am also a surprised to see more women without burqas in the streets than I thought. First after the Taliban fell I would have guessed all women would get rid of the burqa. Since I have learned that the burqa has a longer and stronger tradition and that quite a few women continued wearing it, for different reasons. Then I had heard I should not expect to see many women at all in the streets. So, due to this my expectations were rather low. Therefore I am positively surprised to see more women than expected and many of them very smartly dressed, in bright colours and only with a shawl thrown lightly over the hair. On the way back from the meeting out of town we passed the markets along the Kabul river and there was a heavy traffic jam that we got caught in, not good from a security perspective, but good from a street life study perspective.

Tomorrow is Friday and holyday here, which means we will not be able to hold any meetings. Therefore we have been offered the great opportunity to join some of the embassy staff on a trip to the Panshir Valley. I look very much forward to that!!

At the Airport...again

Well, getting out of Dubai was not easy! When my wake up call rang at four o clock I had just about fallen asleep and felt like anything but going out of bed. No matter, got up and got ready, met my colleague and took a taxi to the airport. Not the nice fancy airport we arrived to from Europe, but to a much smaller terminal where all the flights to nice places like Kabul, Kandahar, Peshawar, Bagdad and Teheran leave from.



Take a pick for your next tourist destination!

We had to be there two hours in advance so we arrived at five for the flight that was supposed to leave at seven. Therefore we were not thrilled to learn it was delayed until ten. We considered to go back to the hotel, but as we did not really feel sure about the flow of information we stayed. It was a long stay. First they said nothing, they it was 11:30, at 12 we boarded and then sat one more hour in the plane before take off. We taxed for so long I was almost wondering if we were about the drive to Kabul.
The whole flying experience was quite interesting. Just watching the kinds of people who travel to those places is truly fascinating and can keep you busy for a long time. Especially I was wondering about a big group of Bosnian men in their 50.s. And also flying Pamir Airways was an interesting experience, if not recommendable for people who are afraid of flying. The food was good though!

Bright Big City Lights

Haven’t seen much of Dubai, but already love it. I simply love big, modern cities in hot climates. Love Bangkok, Shanghai, Manila… and Dubai?? What the hell am I doing in the shitty Small Town??

Maybe I should try to get a stopover here on the way back…

What I don’t like however is to have to get up at four o clock in the morning again. Especially as it is now 1.30 local time and I have lost three hours and can not sleep…

Work and travel

Sometimes I find it frustrating to travel in my work. Ok, it takes me places I would most probably not go to if it was not for my work. On the other hand it makes me get a taste of places but never gives me the opportunity to really explore them the way I would like to.

More or less for fun I have been reading the Lonely Planet guide over Afghanistan, although I know we will not have time nor opportunity to be tourists. The way the guide describe things make you sometimes oversee the hassle to go there and the risks and the non existent infrastructure etc and you feel you would really like to travel the country. We also seem to get there in interesting times. Now is the last month of the Afghan year and we are approaching Nauroz, the Afghan new year. I think we will actually be I in Kabul then. According to Lonely Planet that is a time for festivities all over Kabul, the last buzkashi game of the season is taking place as well as kite running festival. It sounds so exciting. I’d love to go out to see it! But I am afraid I will be locked up in the IMF guest house or in meeting in different UN compound I could imagine trying to cover up as well as I can and try to find me a driver and a guide to take me there, but I can see the face of the embassy staff if I would mention it to them and I am not sure the consultant with whom I will be working will fancy the idea either. (Or maybe he would, he has been working in Afghanistan before.) And generally I don’t think most people would see this being a good idea, as Nauroz, as well as other holidays is also an occasion when insurgents and attacks generally increase…

Stupid people with a strange idea of fun!!

At the Airport

Airports are interesting places. Right now I am at Copenhagen airport waiting for my connection to Frankfurt, so I will see plenty of them today. I spend some of the time looking at people and trying to figure out where they come from and where they are going. The ones coming back from Thailand are easy ones. Not only because they are suntanned, but the way they dress reveals them from other holiday travellers and the final proof is the orchids they are carrying somewhere on their clothes or bags (which also proovs that they travel Thai Airways).
If someone would try to do the same thing with me, I think I am a hard nut to crack. Not that I know what a Swede going to Kabul, via Dubai looks like, but I don't think I would have spotted me. The flak jackes I have checked in and the two satellite phones and other strange stuff I am carrying does not really show.

I am not sure if I will have time to wrtite from this journey, but if not there will be a report here afterwards. Inshallah!

Entertaining Reading

The other day I was searching some literature on Afghanistan on the internet, when I stumbled on something I did not expect. I found the Lonely Planet Afghanistan, issued 2007!! That is so unreal!! The country no one wants to go to (recruiting for Afghanistan is pretty hard) and when you tell people you are going there they think you are crazy, then you find it presented in a guide book as any normal country!! I mentioned this to your security advisor as a joke more or less, and then another colleague, overhearing us, simply picks the very book up from her desk!! Now I have it at my place and have started reading it. It is great! It makes Afghanistan seem like a normal country for tourism.

Although it is sometimes a little too harsh; most of the literature on Afghanistan is mostly political or somehow analytical, but here they just show a picture of a boy and a girl in a poppy field with the text: “cutting and scraping opium poppy in Badakhshan”. Not a word on child labour or Afghanistan being the world’s largest opium producer. Or under a picture of a truck full of burning cargo driven down into a river you find a text calling it “Firefighting Afghan style”. Hmmm, when you know something about the status of the rescue services in the country it is a bit difficult to find it picturesque.

Although the book is sometimes funny. Still I have to say; I find it hard to read Lonely Planet and take it seriously after having read “Molvania”.

Serbian Chaos

Just saw the pictures from the huge demonstration in Belgrade. Saw how people managed to break in to the US Embassy and even set fire to one of the offices. The whole street outside the embassy was completely covered with people. It felt very strange! The street is one of the main arteries in Belgrade and it was my way to work every day for a year, and I passed there on my way to tennis, to the horseback riding, to the jogging, to the beach, to the airport and, yeah almost everywhere I went I passed there.

Of course the happenings came as no surprise. Everyone knew this could/would happen as Kosovo declared independence and the demonstration was announced in advance. And I have seen many pictures from big and sometimes violent demonstrations from Belgrade before, but the year I lived there it was very peaceful and it was one of the happiest in my life. Therefore it feels so strange and so sad. The whole situation is so sad. I am sad for Serbia. Not for losing Kosovo, but for making so many wrong choices, take the wrong turn at so many crossings and for putting itself in impossible situations.

Accepted Trade in Humans??

Obviously the TV-documentary I saw last week about sex-tourism in Thailand was just one in a series of documentaries on the theme. Today it was about sex-tourism on some Caribbean Island where I think most of the women working there came from Venezuela and most of the men were US-American tourist.

It was just so disgusting!! The men could book a “girlfriend” in advance so she was waiting for him on arrival. Or when they arrived the girls were lined up for a “casting”. If he was not satisfied he could complain and have her exchanged for a new one or maybe even get two for the price of one!!! And when one of the girls got her period the customer got really upset and complained until he got another one. How the hell do these men work?!!?!? Most of them even seemed to think what they did was ok enough to have their face and names shown on TV. And of course most of the men were terribly obese, ugly and disgusting in every way and the way they talked about the girls, as things… Horrible!! What is wrong with these men?!!? And what is wrong with our society that lets people treat people that way??!?! I did not believe slavery was still allowed.

I remember when I read Platform of Michel Houellebecq, I found it rather provoking, but now I realise he more or less only described what is already reality, although in his book it was more of a mutual thing. This was not!

Welcome Africa

For the first time I have received a red dot on my "visitors map" in Africa!!! On the huge African continent I did not until now seem to have one single visit. Until now!! And now I was just informed about the provider of the map that it will be archived after one year! That is sad in a way, but still I am kind of happy that I managed to get one registered visitor in Africa in one year.

It is specially funny and interesting that the red dot is in the middle of Sahara! In the middle of Algeria! The funny thing about that is that me and a collegue planned to go there in December, go to Tamanarasset. That is a desert resort in an oasis in the middle of the desert. The pictures I saw of it looked great!! I would have loved to go there, but it was rather expensive, too expensive for us. It would be fun to know if "my visitor" is from there...

Men for Sale!

I am watching a documentary on sex tourism in Thailand. It is really nothing new to me. I have seen more than I ever wanted of it after having worked a couple of months in Bangkok. Still it is very interesting to see it from the girl’s point of view. Still that is also nothing new to me as I interviewed over 100 girls with similar experiences, but still seeing it like this is fascinating. Most fascinating are actually the men. How terribly cheap and tacky they are!! How can they fall for these girls?? How can they lower themselves to this level?? Ok, most of them probably never ever were very high level, and most of them probably are aware of it all being a game, but still…. Tacky!!

They even have a competition in a village about the best foreign husband!! And the winner is!!! Barry from England! Jeezes!!

Stop!

My worries were right. Today Sida blew off the trip to Afghanistan. I am not only a little frustrated. A lot of work for nothing! :-(

Bad timing

It is so frustrating!! I have been working so hard to finally get this trip to Afghanistan going and now finally things started looking really good. Money was there, agreements and all the practicalities was working out well. Then what happens!? The idiots in Afghanistan can not stay calm. Yesterday some of the Swedish troops in northern Afghanistan were shot at and today there a bomb exploded outside the hotel in Kabul where we most likely would stay and where we have some of our people staying. None of these people got hurt.

I am not worried for my personal safety, but I am a bit worried that someone (MoF, MoD, Sida ?)will decide it is too risky to go there now, that would be sooo annoying. There was even talk about evacuation of the ones we have there, not that I think that will be, but..
Not that anyone ever thought it would be very safe, but this is really bad timing.

Really Travelling Again?!

It seems I am really getting into some serious travelling again. It seems we are really going to Afghanistan. This trip, that is to be the kick of for future projects, has been due for sooo long. I only got seriously involved in November/December and we were planning to go there in December, but there was just so much trouble with the whole planning so we postponed the whole thing to January. I was still worried it would not work out, but now it seems we are really going! Ok, we still don’t have the definite booking and our visas haven’t arrived yet etc etc. But it is all under way!!

As it has been this much hassle with it all I don’t really think I have fully understood I might be in Afghanistan in a week, but it is slowly starting to sink in. It will be very exciting, but as ever a bit frustrating. When travelling professionally one can of course not stay as long and see as much as I would like to and also not learn as much about the country as I would love. I have been reading quite some, but most of it is focused on what is relevant for the projects of course. Ok, I still have a week to read and learn!

New Year but still Problems of the Developed World

I am having another one of those luxury problems of the developed world. Just came back from a nice and relaxing trip to friends in Holland and in France. I France I had the opportunity to visit the local weekend market. I got completely carried away by all the delicacies and after having spent some time with a lot of friends around I just felt it was not enough to buy a little to take with me home, but I had to take a lot! Or maybe it was just that I could not make my mind up what to take. Back at home I realise that in my one person house hold not so much delicacies are consumed. So now my fridge is swelling over of sausages, ham, pâtés and foie gras. I just don’t know what to do with it. On top of that I also forgot that I already had a big piece of prosciutto that my sister brought from Italy. What to do?? Invite my colleagues over for cold cuts and wine?? Can one deep freeze these things? It would be horrible just to keep it until I have to throw it all away. Talk about having a luxury problem!!

Or maybe the real problem is that I don’t have a life here and people I can invite to come and eat it together with me?!

Anyhow, the trip to Holland and France was great.

Traditional Germany

No matter how much I love Hamburg and sometimes miss it and whish I would still live there; I this time realised I can not live there nor in Germany at all. Germany is just too traditional and conservative when it come to gender relations. The old sterotype gender roles are still valid there to a much higher extent than in Sweden (Scandinavia). Of course there are far worse places than Germany and Hamburg is still far less conservative then the south of the country, but no matter... It is far to traditional in this respect. And regarding other more conservative countries, there I would probably be so dfferent that I just could not blend in and fully take part in the every day life. In Germany I could and would be expected to. No one can tell from they way that I look that I am not German and if I don't speak too much nor do I sound Swedish. Therefore I think my Swedish values would give me a though time to integrate. I would also expect people to be more modern and enlighted and would probably be constantly disappointed. It is a pity!
But this is actually one of the (sometimes not so many) things I love with being Swedish and live here!

Hamburg Christmas market

Just got back from a weekend in Hamburg. I just love that city!!
Maybe I should not talk too much about it, because I feel it is still something of a "Geheimtipp". The Christmasmarket is also something really special. A Christmas market that has nothing cheap or tacky over it. Lovely!

Cash is king??

I did not take a lot of luggage with me for just one night and a day in Oslo, but I still had a small cabin bag on wheels with me. The venue for the meeting was close to the train station so I planned to walk there. At first I also planned to take my bag with me, but then I thought that there might be some time after the meeting when I could go for a walk and some window shopping (there is really no need for a Swede to do some real shopping in Norway as they have the same stuff as we, but more expensive) so I decided to leave my bag in a locker at the station. Then of course I had a problem; That far I had paid everything with my credit card and I did not have any Norwegian kronas for the locker, for that I needed a 20 kroner coin. So what to do? Go to the exchange office and change 50 SEK?? Start begging for someone to give me 20 NOK?? Take some money from the ATM and have them changed in the automat?? I went for the latter alternative. I knew it was stupid as I will have to pay a fee for that to my Swedish bank and I really did not need more Norwegian money, but thought I could just take 100 NOK and maybe spend ther rest on some snack. Then it turned out the minimum amount you could take from the ATM was 200 NOK (yet another sign that the Norwegians are wealthier than the Swedes, in Sweden the minimum amount is 100 SEK). Ok, but then I was beyond point of no return, I had made my decision not to carry my bag around, so I took the 200 NOK, put the note into the exchange machine and got 200 back in coins, spent 20 NOK on the locker and walked away with 180 NOK in my wallet.

After the meeting I had a whole hour to walk around so I was happy not having my bag with me, but now I had another problem. A problem I very rarely have. I had money that I wanted to get rid of and did not know how to spend it. There is actually not that many nice things that you can get for only 180 NOK and I did not feel like just bying anything and I was not hungry so I did not want to buy snacks. Very strange feeling, not knowing how to spend money. I did not even see the beggers I saw earlier in the morning!! And walking around in the shops and down at the harbour time went and in the end I did not have that much time to look in the shops. In the end I was almost desperate to get rid of the money. Yeah, I know it is stupid. I could just give it away or keep it, I will most probably come back sometime, but as I just realised it was almost twenty years since I last was in Oslo, who knows when that will be....

In the end I just bought a tunic that I saw in a shop for 149 NOK and I took it without trying it on. At home I put it on and realised I will most certainly never use it. I don't even like it!! How stupid is that?!?
Viva the cash less society!!!

Visiting the neighbours

Right now I am in Oslo. For being a close neighbour I must say I have hardly been here. I was here just once, a long time ago. And I wont see much this time either. I am only here for a meeting tomorrow, but as it starts early I had to go this afternoon. Unfortunatly this came up quite sudden and I was late to reserve a room and then there were almost no available hotel rooms in the town, which resulted in that I am staying at an hotel at the airport. That might of course be very convienient sometimes, if you travel by air. But this time I arrived by train, right in the city centre, very close to the site of the meeting tomorrow, but still had to take the airport express train for 20 minutes. Very unconvinient! Very irritating and very bad planning!

Will leave right after the meeting tomorrow as well, so I will not see much of Oslo then either. What a pity. Will have to come back!

From Skara to Pisco

It really is a small world!!

When I was in Pisco, walking back from having done the last amendments to the donation document and feeling relaxed about having finished our mission I walked past a lot of lorries transporting humanitarian material from the air base out to the surrounding towns and villages. There were of course organisations from all over the world, but the lorries were predominantly Peruvian of course. But then all of a sudden I discovered something!




This lorry once came from Skara!! Which is a small town very close to where I grew up!! From B. Knutsson Bil AB in Skara, Sweden. Funny isn't it?!

Pictures from Pisco

Finally I took some time to post some pictures from my trip to Peru. Not the most touristy ones I guess!!


This is the very beautiful AN12 I travelled with. To be sure, it looks much better from the outside...


This is one of my views I could enjoy for 30 hours. I glimpse of the cockpit.


Yes! I know, I do look tired. And I was! This is how I sat for the whole trip from Sweden to Peru.


We landed at the Pisco air base at 2.30 at night. In the morning we could see the rest of the humanitarian community gathering outside the gates.


We were taken for a car ride through what was once the town Pisco. A very depressing sight!



It was sometimes hard to remember this used to be the homes of people and a quite normal little town.


"Our" firs tent erected!


When our mission was completed, we could relax a bit and smile! Here together with Major Sanchez, who helped us a lot on the site.

Strange...

It is unbelievable, but today I even felt quite relieved that I don’t have to travel very soon again. The first thing I did when coming back in the office on Monday was to attend a meeting for planning a trip to Angola in the end of September. That would of course have been very interesting, but a bit stressful as that would have been the kind of trip that would have needed a lot of preparation and the coming two weeks I will not be in the office, but at a course in Stockholm, that also requires some preparation and after-work, so it would have been very stressful. But today we decided not to move on with the Angola-project and I felt a little relieved. I would love to go there and I really hope that I will get to travel more, but not just yet. Strange!

Extreme Travelling

Well, here I have been complaining that I don’t get to travel much anymore, I guess someone must have heard me! Last week I did Iceland, Canada, Bermuda, Aruba and Peru!!

Unfortunately I did not get to see much of any of the places. The reason for my travel was to follow the delivery of tents, blankets, tarpaulins and heaters for the victims of the earthquake in Peru and the reason for all the other stops was that we (me and a colleague) were flying with the cargo in an old Antonov 12 and that plane can not fly too far without filling up on fuel. So the stops on Keflavik, Gander, Bermuda and Aruba were really short and we never left the air field.
The flight took some 27 hours and I can assure you that the comfort of an old Soviet-built air craft from the 60.s is not too great! It is cramped, extremely noisy, shaky and a bit dirty. Of course there is no air-con and the temperature varies greatly with the surrounding. They had a heater and when they turned that one on it got extremely hot. All the security facilities that they remind you of on a regular, commercial flight felt like a joke in this environment, and there were no other facilities either, so those quite frequent fill-up-stops were good for other urgent matters too…. At least we had seats, not very comfortable, but still. And our Ukrainian crew was all gentlemen and let me have two of the four seats. They even provided me with a blanket, a pillow and a box next to the second seat, for me to lay my feet on when I tried to get some sleep. My (male) colleague did not get that kind of extra attention… The worst thing on the trip however, was the fact that all the seven guys in the crew were chain-smokers and were constantly smoking in the plane. And as airports normally are non-smoking areas they stayed inside the plane and smoked even when we were not flying. Normally most planes are of course also non-smoking, but if you have your own plane of course you do as you like.

However, after 27 hours, one rather scary take-off (at Bermuda) and one harsh landing we arrived at the military air field in Pisco, Peru at ca: 02.00 at night. The plane got unloaded quickly and our Ukrainian friends took off again for Brazil and new adventures. We now had to work our way at the airfield that was opened only to receive humanitarian cargo. Fortunately we meet a major in the air force who took kindly to us and let us stay in the military quarters. I got a mattress on the floor, which was perfectly fine for the two-three hours we could lay down; we even had access to a (primitive) bath room!

The next day was full of work, trying to get in touch with the right people and organize a good hand over of the stuff, which worked well. We were also taken thru the disaster area, which was a very depressing sight, I don’t think we saw one single house that was entirely undamaged and most of them were completely destroyed. We were also taken to a tent camp, similar to the one where “our” tents will be put. There the situation was a little more hopeful. Of course it is depressing when you consider that these poor people have lost everything, but the camp was very well looked after and they had kitchens and “bathrooms” and they tried to create some activities for the children so it looked ok. In the afternoon we finished the administration and then we were basically done. We had planned to try to get on a flight and leave Pisco on Thursday morning, but all of a sudden an opportunity opened for us to catch a lift by car to Lima all ready on Wednesday night, and as we had nothing more in Pisco to do and staying on actually only meant a further strain to the already scarce resources we left for Lima, where we arrived at midnight. I don’t think I have to tell you that I appreciated an extra night in a hotel! I even skipped eating, although I had had nothing apart from a “self heating” military ration of ravioli, I just had a hot shower (It was very cold) and then went straight to bed.

We coming to Lima one day earlier also meant we actually could have a whole day in Lima! We had made contacts with a Swede living in Lima for a long time and he and his Peruvian wife kindly took us on to a market where we could see and buy some handicrafts and also drove us thru the centre of historical Lima, so at least we saw something of it. We even managed to drink a pisco sour and eat cevice before leaving for Europe again on Friday, so I feel I got something from Peru with me, accept for sleep deficit, a sore back and tragic pictures of devastated houses. It is a bit frustrating to have been to a country that has so much to see and have seen nothing, but I will just have to come back under other circumstances. The same goes for some of the places were we landed on the way, especially Bermuda or Aruba! I feel I need a real nice vacation on an exotic beach somewhere this winter. Anyone wants to join me??!!

The most memorable thing that I have with me from this trip is actually all the nice, kind, helpful and caring people that we met!

I will post some pictures later, but now I will have to sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day in the office.

Substitute travelling

I feel I have become a bit addicted to travelling. I really miss it now when I don’t travel as much as I want. And what I miss the most is to feel different smells. Just to breathe another air with a different scent, no matter whether it is clean, polluted, sweet, spicy or even smelly; I want to feel a different air. My next possible journey might be in September when I have some plans to go to Italy. No matter how much I love Italy, it does not really count. I have been there quite a few times and it almost feels like home, yet I still love it and really hope I will be able to go!

I haven’t really noticed until I wrote the last post, that my reading is a way to make up for the missed travelling, I have never really made an overview of what kind of books I read. I have just noticed that I don’t read the same books as other people around me seem to read. Right now it is very popular in Sweden to read criminal novels, and there are quite a few Swedish writers of criminal stories that everyone seems to know and have read, except for me. After having written about the book about the Yangtze I received a package of books that I have ordered and while unpacking them it struck me; all the books where about travelling or life in different exotic countries and cultures (as India, Nigeria and Albania). The one book that was not about travelling was an atlas!
Therefore I think I will continue here to give my reviews about books on travelling! As a substitute for the real thing!

The River at the Centre of the World

As I can not travel as much as a would like to right now, I have to settle for imaginary travels, as through reading. Thought I could share some of my literary travel experiences too.
I have just been reading The River at the Centre of the World, A Journey up the reiver Yangtze, and back in Chinese time, by Simon Winchester. It is a very beautiful book about a very fascinating country and as I now know an amazing river. I don't know whether all the "biggest, longest, highest and wildest" really are true, but I don't care. Reading the book made me want to go there at the same time it made me feel I had almost been there too. A good combination. I can recommend it!



I also like the very beautiful cover! I wanted to put a picture of it here on the blog, but all the pictures I first found on the net had a different cover from the one I have. Maybe because I bought my book a couple of years ago and in China... But finally I found a picture.

And... the book has maps! Several maps! I love maps and I like books that have maps! :-)

Domestic Travels II

As I don’t get to travel that much right now, maybe I should write more about Sweden, from a traveller’s perspective. After all it was on the news yesterday, that Sweden made it to the top-twenty-list of tourist destinations in the world. Quite unbelievable if you ask me! I don’t think I would go here if I didn’t live here!
But still, there are nice places. This weekend I will be off to the West coast again, my beloved Bohuslän!

Hello Africa!

I am a bit fascinated by the cluster map on my blog, that shows where you people, who are visiting my blog, come from. Some of you I know,:-) but there are definetly many who I don't know.
I have to admit that I really don't know many people in USA for example, so you must be still unknown friends. But the strange thing is the amazingly white spot over whole of Africa. I do know some people living in Africa, who I think might check my blog sometimes, but still not one single red dot!!!
So if you live in an African country and happen to read my blog, please leave a comment so I know you are there!

Beautiful Slovenia

From what I saw of Slovenia this weekend it is very beautiful and I would love to go back for hiking, cykling, rafting or any other kind of rather activ holiday.

Lake Bled


Me and Saar at the pond at Brdo.




Jezersko outside Kranj.

Travel stress!

Considering how much I travel it is strange that I sometimes wonder if I really like to travel. Sometimes I think I would just like to stay where I am, no matter where that is. This weekend I was in Slovenia for a wedding and that was really nice, but still, when I came to Stockholm I felt I didn’t want to get back here and before I went to Slovenia I didn’t want to go there. It is always like that. And the packing does not get any easier with the years either, I still hate it. This time though I would not have had to spend that much time to pick the right dress and accessories, if I had known.... My bag got stuck in Vienna and did not arrive until after the wedding sermon and just before dinner was served. Then it was a bit late!But thanks to my great friends I managed to get a appropriate outfit.
Anyway Slovenia and the wedding were great. I will post pictures later

Too little travelling in the normal life!

Hmmm, it is a bit sad that I haven't had anything to write on this blog in a long while. It means I have not been travelling as much as I want. I was wondering what would have happened if I had accepted the work in Abuja or in Dhaka. Would that then still have been considered travelling or "normal life"? I mean if I really would have stayed there and worked??
Well, that is not an issue right now anyway. I will stay in Sweden for the nearest future and I dont think my moving to Kristinehamn will count as travelling!

Places to see before you die!

Saw this list over places one ought to have seen before one dies. Of course I am a little upset that I have just seen 10 out of 50 on the list. But on the other hand, I am not planning to die just yet.

There are no real surprises on the list, it is rather predictable, but I am sure there are a lot of other places that ought to be on it, or we could make alternative lists. For example I don’t understand why Bangkok is on it but not Beijing! And not one single place in Eastern Europe! I think this is a result of the list being compiled by British BBC-viewers and governed by their preferences.
Hey, can’t we try to find other places one really ought to see!?!!? Looking forward to your comments and suggestions!!

1. Grand Canyon
2. Great Barrier Reef, Australia
3. Disney World, Florida
4. South Island, New Zealand
5. Cape Town, South Africa
6. Golden Temple, Armritsar, India
7. Las Vegas, US
8. Sydney, Australia
9. New York, US
10. Taj Mahal, India
11. Lake Louise, The Rockies, Canada
12. Uluru (Ayres Rock), Australia
13. Chichén Itz·, Mexico
14. Machu Picchu, Peru
15. Niagara Falls, US/Canada
16. Petra, Jordan
17. Pyramids, Egypt
18. Venice, Italy
19. Maldives
20. Great Wall, China
21. Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe border
22. Hong Kong
23. Yosemite National Park, US
24. Hawaii
25. North Island, New Zealand
26. The Iguaçu Falls, Argentina/Brazil border
27. Paris, France
28. Alaska, US
29. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
30. Mount Everest, Himalayas
31. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
32. Masai Mara, Kenya
33. Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
34. Luxor, Egypt
35. Rome, Italy
36. San Francisco, US
37. Barcelona
38. Dubai
39. Singapore
40. La Digue, Seychelles
41. Sri Lanka
42. Bangkok, Thailand
43. Barbados, West Indies
44. Iceland
45. The Terracotta Army, China
46. Matterhorn, Switzerland
47. Angel Falls, Venezuela
48. Abu Simbel, Egypt
49. Bali, Indonesia
50. Bora Bora, French Polynesia

The mad traveller

I think I now have had the confirmation I needed to realise I am really seriously crazy. During this time I have been working and travelling professionally abroad I have found myself to be very open about the destinations. I have felt I could really go anywhere. I am not so governed about what might be the safest, most profitable, most prestigious or most pleasant place to go, I am just curious about new places to see. There has really only been one place where I always said I would not go (among the countries where Sweden has embassies) and that was Abuja, Nigeria. I know people who have worked there and from their stories I always said; no way, I am not going there!
However, yesterday I was asked if I could take an embassy posting over the whole summer; guess where! Of course in Abuja! Then I noticed my immediate reaction was not; “No way, I am not going there”. But rather; “Hmmm, maybe that would be interesting, maybe I should go there.” And then I realised I would not have been me if I had thought otherwise. That is simply me!
Fortunately I will most probably not be able to accept the offer because I think I will have other things to do, and sometimes I can be sensible, but it would be interesting…

Riksgränsen

Back from a very nice trip to the north! I must admit this trip has somewhat changed my perception of the northern part of Sweden, I had to re-evaluate some of the prejudices I had about that part of the country and of the people living there, all for the better. I still have the same perception about winter though; I don’t mind snow and winter as long as I can go to it and it does not come to me! And this far north the snow is so very white and clean and the slopes have only natural snow. This part is really so exotic. For me it feels much more exotic to go here than to the Alps, although still in my native country. It is so far away, so open, so empty!


And still we had really bad luck with the weather. When we arrived it was raining. That night and next day it was snowing heavy and there was a very strong wind, which meant the whole mountain was closed off. Therefore I and Victoria went for some snow shoe walking, which was also very nice. In the afternoon we caught the train to Narvik mostly because the train ride is supposed to be very beautiful along one of the fjords, and it was! Of course the visibility could have been better, but it was still very nice.

All wrapped up for snow shoe walking in the hard wind.

The border between Sweden and Norway. We crossed the border several times that day.

It is really so far away from everything! Narvik.


We could actually only ski one day, because of the wind and the poor visibility, there was storm and even hurricane warning, so all slopes were closed. That day it was still rather cold and windy and the skiing was difficult because of all the snow that had fallen and the slopes were not well prepared, but it was still nice to ski again. The storm and snowing continued and for a while we were really snowed in as the road was closed and you could only leave in a convoy. As this is a small place with basically only one hotel, one restaurant and one bar being snowed in means you can not avoid getting to know some of the other guests and the staff; it makes a very friendly and familiar atmosphere. Very nice!

In the end it cleared up and they could open the road again (until 1984 train was the only way to get here at all, and if it hadn’t been for the transport of iron ore from the mines in Kiruna and Gällivare to the ice free port of Narvik, there would not have been a railroad either) and we could leave. By then the weather was sooo nice we did not really want to leave, but we had to. But who knows, maybe we will come back soon, they stay open till midsummer!

It is a paradise for off pist skiing!


Enjoying the sun when it finally showed. Someone called Riksgränsen "Heaven or Hell" and I can understand that, when the weather is nice up there it is unbelievable, but when not, it can get really nasty!


As we did not sleep too much during these days I was rather tired on my way back home. So tired fell asleep on the train from Stockholm! I slept so heavy I did not wake up when I should have got off. I did not wake up until my mother, waiting at the station, called me asking where I was. I was so gone! I hade to go with the train all the way to Göteborg, wait another hour for the last train back and did not get home until two o clock last night. Strange ending to a nice trip! Would be nice to calculate how many kilometres I travelled yesterday.

Going north!

This afternoon I will travel north voluntarily for the first time in 17 years! And really far north! I will go to Riksgränsen (www.riksgransen.se) in the very far north of Sweden for skiing. That means approx two hours flying from Stockholm to Kiruna and then another two hours bus transfer. It’s a big country! And it is really exotic! Unfortunately the weather forecast does not look too great, but last time I was there (17 years ago!!) the forecast was never correct so I hope they are still as wrong!!

Fake or real?

I guess many of you have heard the internet clip with a voice calling out from some British airport, names -fake or real? - that sounds like i.e. "My colleague Just farted and Left the room The bastard". Today I heard someting similar, in real life! I wonder what the poor person who made that call thought. Sitting at Schiphol Airport waiting for my flight I suddenly heard; "Attention please. Passengers Strange and Motherless, travelling to London Heathrow on flight no YY, please immediatly go to gate XX".

Holland Holidays

This weekend I am off to Holland! Looking forward to see good friends and have a good time. Hopefully there will also be a little more spring there then here in Sweden. Nice!!!!!!

Domestic travels

This weekend I enjoyed some travelling in Sweden. I visited some friends in southern Sweden, in Helsinborg and Lund and besides the nice socializing and partying we also saw some wellknown sights I hadn't seen before, as Ale Stenar; kind of a Swedish Stonehenge. Felt like holiday. Nice!




Some small houses in the picturesque village of Kåseberga.

New Name?

Hmmm, I have been thinking whether I should change the name of this blog or not. Somehow it seems less apropriate to call it Travels 06 anymore. But on the other hand, just to upgrade it to 07 isn't too creative either or...? Maybe just Travels? Or maybe just leave it the way it is? Any suggestions?

Zimbabwean tears, again

It is amazing how far and fast country can sink. I somehow thought Zimbabwe had reached the bottom and would soon start moving upwards. I mean from the bottom there is only one way…
From having been the second riches country in Southern Africa in year 2000 it is now one of the world’s poorest countries, and it has the world’s fastest sinking economy, 30 % of the population is living off less than 1 USD a day, from having been a net exporter of agricultural products it can now hardly feed it’s own population, the inflation is over 1200% and there is a constant lack of foreign currency leading to ever more frequent power cuts, cuts in water supply, deteriorating water quality and constant fuel shortage. As if the country was not already pretty isolated it seems to get worse by worsening connections with the rest of the world as internet and mobile phone network providers are cutting down on their services due to lack of foreign currency.
I thought somehow that the land invasions, that really kicked off this down going spiral, had stopped, but recently I read that those few white farmers how still remain on their farms (I think there are just about 400 left) are threatened by prison if they don’t leave. I also heard the government had brutally stopped another demonstration by the opposition. So it seems they have not yet reached the bottom. It feels so hopeless. This is a country that could have had all the chances, but is so completely mismanaged and ruined. I know it is not the only one in Africa (unfortunately not), but as I have been there and know people there whom I care for it feels so frustrating. Maybe there is some kind of Zimbabwean action group I could join?! To support the local opposition?! Any suggestions?

Wor(l)ds of wisdom

I don't want you to understand the previous post as some kind of challenge. It it of course just for fun. It does not matter how many countries you have seen, but what you have learned during your travel.

Competitive travelling

So who's the most experienced traveller? Test it and post your result.

http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedCountries

Obviously I have seen only 15% of the world, and 35 countries. That makes me happy, there is still a lot left to see!