I took these photos in Damascus and Aleppo at the end of 2010/beginning of 2011 while I was studying Arabic at the University of Damascus. At that time, the uprising was starting in Tunisia and Egypt, and my Syrian friends were following the events with a mitigated interest. Back then, everybody agreed that the revolution wouldn’t spread to Syria, because “Syria was different”. Syria is an incredibly multicultural society, and this is even more salient in Damascus, where people with very different social backgrounds, religious beliefs and lifestyles all live together in what seemed some kind of harmony. I found there a great tolerance for all origins and religions, which as far as I know is still present in Damascus despite the conflict.

When the first demonstrations started in Syria, I saw something incredible happening: all of a sudden, the people around me were starting to speak about the government. My friends would close their doors, put the T.V. on very loudly to be sure that nobody outside could listen to them, and they would engage in fierce debates about Bashar, about the government, and about taking part or not in the demonstrations. It wasn’t at all obvious to them that Syria needed a revolution; some of them were quite happy with the situation and I think that many were aware that the demonstrations would turn into a sectarian conflict similar to what has happened in Lebanon and to what is happening in Iraq.

When I took these pictures I had no idea of what would happen. But I wanted to show something: I wanted to show that Syria was a multi-faceted country, much more open and diverse than I would have imagined, and very far from the negative clichés we generally have in the “West” about Middle-Eastern countries. Syria, or more particularly for me Damascus, was colourful, lively, and a great place to live in. Unfortunately this doesn’t really hold anymore – but I hope that in the future it will become again the enchanted country that had a place for everyone.

See more of Héloïse’s work on her flickr and blogspot.

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One of the hallmarks of the journey is the constant exchange of cultures that occurs when you go to a new place, no matter how close to home. Meeting new people and learning new things: this is travel. Food is a large part of this experience, with the ability to bring together disparate people and ideas and meals can serve as the perfect setting to distill this part of travel into a memorable bite-sized piece.

The Wanderer recently met with the team at Meal Sharing, an organization that helps people to share a home-cooked meal in homes all across the globe. We spoke to founder Jay Savsani about his motivation behind the idea:

“I had the unique opportunity to be hosted by a Cambodian family for a meal in their home. It was such a magical experience to be in their home, eating traditional Cambodian dishes, and sharing tales from our respective homelands. The best part of the evening was when the host busted out his Casio keyboard and played some classical Cambodian songs. I definitely wanted to create a website that would help facilitate the spontaneity and beauty of the evening that I shared in Cambodia. Unique tastes with very kind people around the world.”

The idea behind Meal Sharing, thus, is not only to enjoy food in a home setting, but also to learn more about the cultures of the people cooking it. This is particularly interesting in the age of the ‘local’ food movement that stresses smaller scale consumption for the benefit of the environment. It’s no wonder that the idea has taken off, with the organization recently speaking at the British Parliament and partnering with UK organizations to meet the challenges of food waste. This partnership culminates on June 2^nd, Global Sharing Day in which Meal Sharing, the Big Lunch, and the People Who Share will attempt the world record for most shared food in a single day, with Meal Sharing acting as the platform to bring the record to fruition. Last year’s event reached 60 million people from 147 countries, find more details here – http://www.compareandshare.com/thepeoplewhoshare/global-sharing-day/

To get a further idea of what the experience actually entails, we asked Dom Harrington to share his thoughts on a recent Meal Share:

“I was kindly invited by my friend Jason and his cousin Matthew to share a meal and learn about Meal Sharing in London last week.

After a delicious starter of ceviche (a blend of peppers, chillies and prawns where the prawns are cooked in lime juice) Matthew explained some of his motivation behindMeal Sharing “what better way to experience a new culture and meet new people than to share good food and conversation?”

After a lot of traveling by myself I can see what he means, if you are in a strange city for work or travel then why eat by yourself in a hotel when you could go into a local family home and experience something genuine from the area you are in?

The idea however, is not just limited to travel, we agreed that a meal is something that should always be shared – whether someone is traveling or not. Too often when cooking for a small number of people there is leftover food that someone else could enjoy. “It’s not about making elaborate food to impress people, but more just to share what you have and to enjoy other people’s company”, although with the marinated steak Matthew had prepared us for lunch I suspected he did want to impress us a little!

Also sat at the table we were joined by two girls (a photographer and a journalist) who were there to write a small piece about Meal Sharing for a national newspaper. As a professional, the photographer insisted on only being there to take photos and wasn’t there to eat the food. But it didn’t take long for her to realise what she was missing…she soon put down the camera and tucked into a medium rare steak from the local Brazilian butcher.

Stories were exchanged by all and the conversation often drifted back to other good food we liked to eat.  After all five of our bellies had been satisfyingly stuffed it was time for us to go our separate ways and to spread the word of sharing meals, sharing conversation and making friends.

As an experience I would say that it was definitely worth it – not just because I got a free meal out of it and met some lovely people but because it was one of the most natural things ever – nothing felt forced, everyone could be who they were and there was nothing uncomfortable about it. There is of course always going to be a slight trepidation about being a guest and having breakfast/lunch/dinner with people that you don’t know and will not necessarily get along with – but because everything was so unique, new and natural that trepidation fell away for me – I would even encourage others to try it that weren’t necessarily open to the idea in the first place – you never know who you might meet!

I would certainly do it again – either with the same people, others or a mix of people.

How do I sign up?

Just go to the www.MealSharing.org, put a profile up, put some photos up and start inviting others to come over or ask yourself along! It’s not scary, it’s fun, natural and you’ll be part of a great community to boot!”

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Max Stephenson Long in the wilderness of Wales…

Windswept snow adorned the rough, stubble grass all around us, as we struggled against the wind to cross the Hergest Ridge. Before us, snow swept down incessantly in thick bouts, occasionally interceded by spells of sunshine which gave us a false sense of dawning warmth that never came. To our right, patches of blue sky and rays of sun peaking through the clouds hinted to better weather, whilst to our right was a sea of thick white cloud and snow. We stood on a climatic knife-edge, uncertain.

The wind was fierce, grazing our faces with fresh outbursts of snow, biting into our skin. Sign posts became glazed with snow, the yellow and green acorns of the Offa’s Dyke Path hidden from our view. With dozens of paths snaking to and fro, staying on track was not easy. We strayed a couple of times but eventually managed to find our way.

Before long we began our descent, down steep, rocky tracks that lead deep into another Welsh valley, another town, another river. Weather-battered sheep wandered about the hills, unsheared, ragged and grey, yet somehow heroic as they clung, motionless, to the steep hills.

This is Wales, the land of unpredictable weather, armies of sheep, tea cakes and stunning views. Long isolated, obstinate in its separate national identity and language, proud of its long-deceased mining industry and resolute in their rugby prowess, perhaps the root of Welsh idiosyncrasy lies in the digging of Offa’s Dyke in the 8th Century by Offa, King of Mercia.

The dyke itself is a remarkable feature, now built into the landscape and grassed over, blending in to its natural surroundings. Perhaps one of the most underrated of Anglo-Saxon kings, Offa

I’d only ever seen the Wild West in badly made films from the 1950s, though I tended to avoid them, not wanting them to ruin my childhood dream; because, growing up, it was my dream.  I wanted to travel, to see the States, the Wild West, and its rocky formations that I’d only ever envisioned in my then rather small head.

I remember browsing through my friend’s photos at the age of about ten; the furthest I’d been was sunny old Spain and here was a girl who’d been to what seemed to my young and innocent self the other side of the earth, a world away never to be reached by my inquisitive (and no, not quite soul-searching – I was only ten) eyes; she’d been to California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada.  I marvelled at the Grand Canyon and its inconceivable magnitude, the reddish rocks populating the vast deserts and, of course, the fairy lights popping up in the middle of Nevada, miles away from anything but more artificial than the celebrities who visit it; Las Vegas; city of gambling, vice, and debauchery.

So when I booked my trip to the US, I was filled with pride at having realised one of my dreams.  Stepping out of the house with a twenty-two hour journey ahead of me (I chose stinginess over comfort and flew indirect) was daunting, not least because I’d never flown alone before.  What was more daunting was the prospect of voyaging the south west of the country with a group of strangers from all ends of the world.  And yet more daunting than that? The prospect of pitching a tent; yes, I was camping, and I’d never done it before.  Where else would be better to start than in deserts crammed with lethal wildlife lurking suspiciously in the corners of the earth?  Though spotting a black widow just inches away from our tent possibly wasn’t on my checklist, it was all in the name of getting closer to nature and seeing what this striking environment had to offer.

Our group leader was certainly interested in living at one with nature; a twenty-something year old free spirit with dreadlocks down to his ankles who’d been travelling North America for the past four years, he was living out of a van and realising his bohemian dreams of running wild in the country’s endless and fascinating open spaces, and he was just what I needed; an escape from civilisation.

Though that’s not entirely what I got during the first few days of my trip; I began my travels in San Francisco and was greeted with spectacular views of the city’s skyline, distinguished by the famed Transamerica Pyramid soaring up into the heavens above, as I sailed under the renowned Golden Gate Bridge on a catamaran. The futuristic pyramid belongs to the financial district of the city, an area populated by businesses which benefited enormously from the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, during which the city transformed from a small American settlement, recently belonging to Mexico, to a boomtown at the epicentre of the USA’s commerce.

Yet, lying on the San Andreas Fault, the city has another epicentre to contend with, and in 1906 much of the city was ruined after a major earthquake.  Many homes were destroyed, and homelessness in the area continues to be prevalent, something which became clear to me as soon as I stepped out onto Union Square, the main shopping district of the city.  What became clear to me too was the diversity of the city and the eccentricity of its characters; I soaked up the distinctively Mexican feel of the taqueria-filled Mission Dolores district, and ventured into the largest Chinatown in the world (excluding those in Asia of course).  San Francisco and its tourist’s haven, Fisherman’s Wharf, done, I prepared myself for our next stop; Santa Cruz, a beach destination situated along the ‘golden coast’ of ‘sunny’ California; and what was I greeted by? An azure sky perhaps, unfortunately masked by many a threatening white cloud and what seemed to me gale-force winds to boot.  Well at least I wouldn’t get homesick.

But the weather didn’t matter; I was seeing things I’d only ever imagined, revelling in the freedom granted by travelling.  Continuing our journey south along the Californian Coast, we walked the pier of Santa Barbara and arrived at Beverley Hills and Hollywood, home to the stars.  After strolling along the renowned and upmarket Rodeo Drive and spotting the world-famous letters on the hills of Hollywood, we travelled to San Diego.  The first Spanish settlement of the state and the birthplace of California, the city has developed into a retreat for the young and trendy and the second largest in the state.

After so much city sightseeing, I was looking forward to getting under the skin of the region, and I did just that; driving along Route 66, a destination I’d been longing to visit since as far back as I remember, we stopped at a row of diners and motels which seemed to exemplify my preconceptions of America.  We finally arrived at the Grand Canyon, and, head full of expectations and visions stemming from long ago, gazed in disbelief; every expectation of mine was exceeded.  Because a photograph, I realised, can never entirely recreate the sensation that seeing something so great first hand – one of the Seven Wonders of the World – can produce.  Flying over the 277 mile canyon in a helicopter was an opportunity I’d never envisioned, and there I was, seated by the pilot, whole canyon in view, surrounded by gasps of awe bellowing from the passengers behind, epitomising my every thought.  And it was only by hiking down into the canyon the following day that I could start to gain a sense of the enormity of this impressive formation that nature herself had cunningly carved out.  That night, gazing at the astonishing beauty of the sun setting over the canyon, senses alive to every sound, harmonious and at one with my surroundings, I began to consider the phenomenal power of nature. And this power persisted in impressing itself upon my mind as I continued my journey further into Arizona and into the desert landscapes of Utah, where I swam in the idyllic, clear waters of Lake Powell, a part of the Colorado River, which spans 1,450 miles and is responsible for the mysterious shapes of the south west’s characteristic canyon landscapes.  My days in Utah were spent running wild in the desert.  I rode on horseback through the wilderness and camped at a Western Ranch with real-life cowboys in the middle of nowhere.  I glimpsed the sun set over the delicate arch and rose at an inconceivable hour one morning to see the sun rise behind the silhouetted, iconic backdrop of many a western film, at Monument Valley.  I rode around in a guided jeep tour and slept in a Hogon far out into the desert with members of the Navajo nation, an Indian tribe resident along the whole of the Colorado Plateau and the largest in North America, following an evening of tribal dancing around the campfire.  And I finally began to truly grasp the history of the region and the real diversity of its people.

Our journey further into Utah revealed to us more and more the extraordinary effects of nature as we continued visiting various renowned National Parks and camped at Moab, one of the most liberal towns in the area and full of out-of-the-ordinary types.

And suddenly we were headed for Las Vegas; I’d seen the pictures, I’d seen fake Paris and I’d seen fake Venice, but nothing could prepare me for the reality of this monstrosity sprouting up from the arid, empty desert lands of Nevada.  As I watched the skyline getting nearer and nearer, I felt a pang of regret and sadness at leaving behind the beautiful wilderness and re-entering civilisation after two weeks of tents, deserts, and endless canyons.  But I discovered in the fluorescent lights of Sin City a beauty of their own.  And I loved every minute of being there.

For me my trip was about freedom; momentarily escaping from the hectic lifestyle we all lead in our day-to-day lives, escaping everything and everybody I know and the pressures surrounding me at home – and living for myself.  I certainly found freedom in the vast, open spaces abundant in the region I visited; and I found in Las Vegas a different sort of freedom; people get married just because they want to, they have their receptions at Planet Hollywood and they celebrate afterwards on a fake gondola at the Venetian; and why not?  People party all night long and gamble away their money, drink on the streets and do whatever the hell they want and, most of the time, it’s all legal.  Though by day it resembles any another city, Vegas liberates us for a moment from the limitations placed upon us by ourselves and by others, and lets us run wild for a few days; and though it might seem a paradox, to me it’s just the same as running wild in nature, just as my group leader did, just as I did, during those few, precious weeks of freedom and of escapism that I’ll never forget.

At the end of the first night my travelling buddy Kyro and I were in high spirits: we had visited a local bazaar and the holy town of an old and tiny religion, gone hill-walking, and braved the biggest rollercoaster the city’s theme park had to offer. I had also beaten him in bowling. As we reclined in the taxi on the way back to our hostel I realised to my surprise that I was having fun in Iraq.

We were in Iraqi Kurdistan, a territory in the north of Iraq which gained some political sovereignty from Baghdad in 1970, but was devastated since then by war. Saddam Hussein’s Al-Anfal genocide campaign in the 1980s was responsible for up to two million deaths by means of aerial bombing of whole villages, chemical warfare and firing squads. The region had benefited since then from the US invasion, and helped with the toppling of the Iraqi government.

24 hours earlier I had wanted nothing more than to run away. We had travelled from Silopi in south eastern Turkey for five hours and arrived at the bus station close to midnight. We spent the night there waiting for daybreak, when cheap taxis could take us across the border. On the horizon you could just see the black imprint of the rugged mountains which seemed to run in every direction. The prospect of what was beyond them filled me with dread, especially as we talked to our first Iraqi friend.

“Mohammed” was a middle aged Arab from Mosul, a town south of Kurdistan in Arab Iraq, and was waiting because the roads to his city were closed from 6am to 6pm by US forces due to the risk posed by daily bombings. His was a story of hopelessness: his work as a university graduate chemist was in tatters due to an inability to import raw materials (chlorine gas is classed as bomb fodder) and his factory along with thousands more in Iraq had been closed. We were told how in his youth he had gained a scholarship to Canada to study but was drafted to fight in the Iran-Iraq war. Eight years later the fighting had stopped and he was still stuck in Iraq. The future of his son was in jeopardy as it wasn’t safe enough to send him to university. Even when the taxis arrived in the morning, he found it hard to convince someone to take him home.

His despair at the state of his country was apparent: as he described it, followers of Saddam’s regime were destabilising the country for no other reason than to impede development. With no outlet for youth expression like the Facebook driven uprisings in other countries, strapping bombs to oneself is the alternative method of expressing discontent. As we delved deeper into the issues in Iraq, we found that Mohammad had no doubt that the Americans were now responsible for the separation of Arabs and Kurds, and had ruined the country for him. Our meeting was during the heyday of the Arab Spring; a time of hope in the Middle East, but for him there was none. “They’ll all become like Iraq” he said, definitively. He implied that the lack of a strong dictator would result in the crumbling of these countries; an idea we were to come across again.

We said our goodbyes before heading off to Duhok, a city in the northwest. The smoothly paved roads, new storey buildings and swanky Japanese taxi cabs were a contrast to the dusty, quaint city I was expecting. We chatted to our taxi driver, who took us to Lalish, the Mecca of the small Yazidi faith (an amalgamation of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastranism). He was full of vibrance and joy in his newly found freedom: the future of his son was secure, with him attending a new Kurdish university. When he had lived under an oppressed Kurdistan it was too dangerous even to go to secondary school.

As we drove through the desert he’d point to areas on the road near villages and shops and say “people used to come here and blow themselves up!” half chuckling to himself, as if reminiscing. He even had shrapnel wounds from those days. He had moved on from the time of oppression and was embracing this new life. Although he professed to believe everyone was equal, there was some casual slandering of the Arabs, mainly to do with the state of their cars: foreign investment means I sat in more taxis with TVs in the headrests in Iraq than I’d seen in the UK my whole life.

While driving we were stopped regularly by the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military; literally “Those Who Face Death”. On one occasion, a burly, 60 year old, toothless general peered into our car. We were both petrified. He took our passports and gruffly told us in English “You… you are… very welcome in Kurdistan”. The army is hugely respected by the people for keeping the peace, and more importantly, freedom in Kurdistan. This friendliness quickly became a recurring theme of the trip.

In fact, along the way the only trouble we had with the Peshmerga was when our taxi driver had an expired licence and the police held us up while they flagged down other cars to hitch us lifts. We made it to Amedi where we met a seventeen year old called Suleiman. He acted as our guide, showing us round his hilltop town where we saw the Eastern Gate (as seen in Lonely Planet’s top 10 of the Middle East) and introducing us to his friends. We played basketball, talked football, smoked far too much shisha and ate plenty of ice-cream. It was all so disarmingly normal.

Our next main stop was Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan. We met a man called Hassan who became our new guide. He was the big dentist in town. (Seriously: he got recognised at the mall). He was an Arab who moved up from Baghdad to find safety, as had many others. This has resulted in Erbil quickly becoming an ethnically diverse community over the past decade, with most people now bilingual in Arabic and Kurdish. It had been a good day, but as we turned to leave we caught on the TV reports of multiple suicide bombings in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, merely 60 or 70km south. It’s this dichotomy between the two Iraqs which stings the most. The Middle East was, for centuries, relatively peacefully, cohabited by many different religions. The twentieth century brought on decades of strife, but now Iraqi Kurdistan is the beacon of hope that things can get better.

Iraq is a stunning country. Perfect blue skies are carved by the sandy, sharp mountains. In the desert heat one can relax by a waterfall oasis with a kebab followed by limitless refills of hot, sweet tea. In the capital, Erbil, you can stand on the oldest continually inhabited area on earth, and then, feeling suitably cultured, sneak off to the Christian district for some cheap liquor, and the friendly locals are more than willing to show you around their local mosque between a game of netball and a chat round a shisha pipe. The Kurds are proud of their land, and they should be. Welcoming, but not yet tainted by tourism, the “Other Iraq” is a place where you can make real discoveries.

I was high in the mountains in the jungle-clad interior of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands –-now of Will and Kate fame– but previously little-known other than as the scene of ferocious guerilla warfare between the USA and Japanese in World War II. In this remote area I was the only white face that had been seen in living memory.

These mountains were the hideout of the armed bands during the recent civil war and the island’s remote valleys are also a safe-haven of cultural isolation. With very little contact with the outside world an ancient traditional way of life is still being lived by many tribal groups. It was these people that I intended to visit and interact with, hoping to learn about their culture and their unique religious beliefs, which have fused some aspects of Christianity with indigenous spirituality.

There are many reasons not to visit the mountains of Guadalcanal. Some of the more obvious ones include the precipitous terrain, the awful food, and the legacy of tribal violence. There was a village in one valley that I was instructed not to go near, since it was where Andrew Te’e, the powerful leader of one of the militant gangs, was hiding from the law. But in this part of the highlands I was in no such danger from rebels. Instead, I was severely warned, I had to contend with the powers and pranks of the resident giant population.

“When you go into the bush,” Melkiore the village chief told me, “you must always keep your hair tied up very tight,” — I have long blond hair -– “if not – the giants will think you are mocking them.”

All the local women practice the custom of tying up one’s hair when going into the bush, but as a man my long hair, combined with my colossal height compared to the locals – the tallest of them about at my shoulder – would alarm the giants more than usual.

“If they see you, they will try and cut it off.” This had apparently happened before. A Japanese soldier, who one of the old men had led into the jungle during the “Bigfala Fight” (World War II) had been sheared by the giants in his sleep.

This is all to say that for the traveler willing to step off the beaten track in the Solomon Islands unexpected things can happen. The only information in travel guides for this area of the country is that it is wild and remote and you will test your Indiana Jones survival skills to launch any expedition here. That is what attracted me there: being the explorer that in a former life I feel I might have been.

I spent all my time with the indigenous people, learning about the culture and recording their beliefs and their folk-tales. I interviewed village giant historians, witch doctors and spiritual leaders. I was, it turned out, the first foreigner in living memory to take an interest in these people’s lives.

This is all to set the scene of an environment where everything you can imagine in your wildest explorer dreams is a reality.

The research I did has given me material to write up my experiences and add to the fledgling travel writing culture that is developing about the Solomon Islands and the Pacific Islands in general. The ‘South Seas’ as they were romantically known have a fascinating heritage in the western imagination and this cultural perspective of the islands is one of which I am always conscious in describing my own narratives. All writers who come back from this remote part of the world assure their readers that the tales they tell are true and accurate – now I will do the same. But there is a kind of tropical fever that travelers are prone to in the Pacific Islands – they seem to make the imagination hyperactive and the senses intensely sharp.

What I went through in the jungle of Guadalcanal is a true story – but then, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

*

“I know your great- great-grandmother,” chief Melkiore confided in me. We were sitting cross-legged on the hard mud floor in the smoky sacred-house in the middle of the village. The whole village had gathered to hear this evening’s “storying” and children overflowed out the door of the small leaf-house.  And the highland rain pounded down on the roof.

Over the next few hours, through a combination of my own slightly broken Solomon ‘pijin’ English and the tribal dialect translated by the local man I was employing, I gradually got the bottom of this bewildering statement.

In their belief, in the ancestral past (a time charmingly and hazily described as “befoa” – ‘before’) a wise woman was sent away from the island. She was sent away in what is known as a ‘cheka’, a Solomon Islands’ custom, which involves sealing the individual into a canoe supplied with a few coconuts and setting the vessel to drift in the open ocean. More often than not these people died, although sometimes they first reached neighbouring islands where their enemies subsequently killed them. This practice was a death sentence in a time of merciless headhunting. But this woman survived and drifted in her hollowed out mango trunk all the way to America. There she told the story of Christianity to the Americans and Europeans.

It is worth noting here that in this case, as with other Cargo Cults and similar hybridized prophecies in Melanesia, Christianity is known not as a middle-Eastern religion, but as a European and American one. This is explained by encounters with the European imperial powers and then the US military during WW2.

This particular group on Guadalcanal is known as the Gaena’Alu or Moro movement. They believe (and have collected the evidence for it) that the stories told in the Bible are based on events that took place in Guadalcanal originally. The “European version”, is “incomplete”, they say, and owes its existence to an imperfectly remembered story that this exiled Guadalcanal woman told.

Their version of Christian beliefs is very detailed and there are sacred stones and groves of bamboo in the mountains that mark almost every story of significance in the Bible. Many of the smaller artifacts have been stored in the sacred-house, including the sharpened piece of bamboo that was used to cut Jesus Christ’s umbilical chord.

My eyes grew ever wider as I heard these things mumbled over the embers of the fire by the wrinkled oral-historians of the tribe as they smoked their pipes and chewed betel nut. The chief then explained to me what he meant by, ‘I know your great- great-grandmother.”

Many of the spiritual leaders of the Moro Movement (though not all of them) believed in a prophecy associated with this wise woman who had taken the story of Guadalcanal Christianity to the West. Much like the “songlines” of the aboriginal Australians, Melanesians have “story-lines”. The chief explained that when this woman had taken her journey she had left a path behind her. Her descendant would be able to follow this path and return to where it began, and where (in their belief) all life began, on Guadalcanal. There he would reconnect with his people and tell their stories to the world, since as a descendant of the wise-woman he would be clever enough to do so. They also have some rather condemning myths explaining why they are still living their simple life in the bush while their European and American cousins are living a better life. The moral of the story is a kind of antithesis to the American Dream ideology.

Many of the leaders believed that I was this prophesied descendant. This suspicion was confirmed by the fact that I took an interest in their beliefs and stories, and it was for this reason that they revealed my identity to me. The young man who I had employed as my translator, himself a Christian and not a believer in the Moro movement doctrines, shyly whispered to me later that night as we lay down in the hut to sleep whether what the chief said was true.

Over the next few weeks I took on the role of historian and recorded as much as I could of the oral history and beliefs of the tribes I lived with.

Throughout I was acutely aware of the footsteps I was following. The history of colonial exploration is full of such titles being thrust upon white European adventurers. The story that instantly comes to mind is of Pizarro being hailed by the Aztecs as a white god who they then worshipped. This bloody legacy was always in the back of my mind during the rest of my expedition. Of course, my intentions were not imperial expansion and acquisition of wealth, and therefore exploitation of the position of power I had been given never suggested such bloodthirsty tactics. But I was always aware of how much responsibility had been placed in my hands by the leaders of these tribes.

We like to think in the age of mass-tourism and globalization that we as Westerners have shrugged off the legacy of colonialism: that the “post-modern traveler”, as this magazine has described before, is somehow ahistorical, asocial, and independent. That is to say, the typical “journey” that those young Westerners tend to describe who have been privileged enough to travel is all about personal development, usually at the expense of some arbitrary volunteer work.

Of course, I say this as much describing myself as anyone else. It always disturbs me that those people with whom I find such pleasure in living do not have the freedom to globetrot in the way I did to reach them. I feel guilty when I have to explain to them how I got there by plane and how much it costs to fly.

But the remedy, is to remember also how much I as an individual can give them back. And for this they expressed their gratitude to me. Simply by taking part in day-to-day activities and festivals, dressed in the traditional outfit like everyone else, my excitement was able to reinvigorate the interest of the young in their own identity and the lifestyle of their parents.

Whether doing volunteer work or exploration, we still need to remember that our white skin can get us into some uncomfortable spots if we are not careful to remember the perspective with which many people view us. Though we feel those colonial days are long gone, in the Solomon Islands at least, that is not always the case.

We travel with a legacy and we need to be aware of whose footsteps we follow. But more than this, we leave a legacy behind us. When travelling in remote areas like this, we make a huge mark; in fact we never really leave the place. Our memory stays, and any subsequent visitor will experience the repercussions of how we behaved. Therefore, we have a responsibility, to remember the past, and the future.

The temptation is simply to let the pictures speak for themselves. The rest—how, why—matters very little. Here is a fire mutant car, a giant Victorian antique tricycle rigged with gasoline, belching a massive fireball out of its minaret chute into the dark skies; And that? That is the Mad Max Thunder Dome, you climb in there, bare hands, with another person, and beat the shit out of each other, no exit until blood is drawn. Now look up, see the far horizon, where dry land below falls into sky above: It’s a desert, a vast, ancient dried lakebed called the playa, out in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, the state where deserts and valleys ring through for better or for worse. Every year, in the final week of August, a community—50,000 strong—springs out of this barren soil to make up Black Rock City, home to the Burning Man Festival.

To go to Burning Man is to go to another world and revel in a visual reality previously invisible to you, of whose existence you haven’t even heard. And when the week is up, back behind your worldly eyes, three measly primary colors would seem insufficient to paint the world. The withdrawal is very real.

My first Burning Man experience was a happy accident. It was a few days before the event when a friend, a veteran “burner” of ten plus years, had an extra ticket he needed to get rid of. With that, and nothing more than a vague notion of what Burning Man was (a festival where people do whatever they want?), I hastily packed my rucksack and set off to meet him in San Francisco. The drive from San Francisco to Nevada was going to be 14 hours. My friend’s dusty old station wagon, loaded from top to bottom, was quite a sight. Glow-stickered bicycles strapped haphazardly to the car roof, the insides bloating over with tents, backpacks, food, cookery, and assortments of costumes, glowsticks and lighting contraptions, all of which would prove to be useful on the godforsaken playa later on.

The car was a spectacle parked on the side of the road. Neighbors and pedestrians who strolled through immediately recognized our mission. Some patted our backs for luck, others shared a story or three. Those who couldn’t make it “this year” gave us big, wistful hugs. Burning Man’s legacy in San Francisco was clear. This was, after all, where it all started in 1986. Larry Harvey had gathered a few friends on a beach and lit up an effigy, a spontaneous act of delirium, out of which Burning Man grew. Today it is an event of 50,000 people, celebrating art, self-expression, music, and the human spirit completely stripped down. At the apex of the event, the Saturday of the week, a 40-feet-tall effigy of the Man is lit and burnt to ashes in an explosion of pyrotechnics.

As far as 25 miles outside the location, our car came to a standstill. The line was long. Vehicles straight out of the future and the past were lined up bumper-to-bumper, waiting to enter. Volkswagen vans, magic school buses, rumbling 30 foot-long trailers painted into psychedelic dreams. People poured out of their still vehicles, slithering and shimmying in excitement (“we finally made it home”), dressed in outrageous outfits, or else nothing at all.

I quickly realized that seven days was too little time. The first few days I was living a dream, unable to stop gaping, my mind racing in every direction, trying to take it all in. Every morning I woke up with the sun. By 9am I was baking like a dead chicken in my tent; by noon the desert was shimmering under the 45 degrees Celsius heat. Dust storms ripped through the entire playa like clockwork, and everything would disappear. The dust storms are a big part of Burning Man: everything freezes in mid-action—then they resume. A convertible full metal spacecraft mutant car rolled up next to a half chicken, half triple-decked bus at whose sides hung beer booster missiles. A collection of battered, fuel-powered sofas revved up side-by-side, ready to commence a race. Elsewhere a bunny art car chased after a carrot art car. With the sensory stimuli on top of the bodily depravation, dehydration and sunburn, I wondered if I had lost my mind. Finding my way around in a city as large as five square miles was no easy feat. One minute a woman painted in a full body sleek silver pattered up to me, licked my cheek, and handed me a token, which I was supposed to pass on to a next person after initiating a non-sexual contact. Then I was sitting in a sensory deprivation box, with my vision and hearing artificially removed, bending my already warped mind. Barely stumbling out later, I came face to face with a Dracula and Pac Man duo who shoved to me a handful of pot rice krispies and mushroom chocolates.

Burning Man’s mission is one and everything at the same time. Burners call it “home,” but only because at Burning Man you can be everything that you want to be. There is a reverence for the unspoken: you don’t have to define who you are. Like any conventional society, Burning Man has a variety of distinct social groups, each of them unique—but the similarities end there. Unlike in real life, there is no hierarchy to Burning Man’s social layers. Instead, the groups interact with one another as if moving through a fluid and intricately connected sphere. The lack of paper money—vending is banned at Burning Man—further strips away any remaining boundaries. Artists spend time and money to construct incredible art sculptures to be shared and (most of them) burned; entire theme camps exist at for no reason other than to give—noodles, margaritas, ice creams, massages, pizza, sushi, steaks, fortunes, entertainment—“free” in so far as you “pay” with a connection, a thought, a kind word, that primal ability of a sentient human being.

Walk around with a smile and an empty bowl and watch it fill. The temporary suspension of boundaries is liberating, but at the same time it terrifies and exhilarates: You are truly with yourself, covered in nothing (so to speak), and forced to deal with what lies beneath. At my best I found myself wondering about the ways in which I could actively participate and give back what I took, planning and plotting my next year at Burning Man, yet at my heart I knew that simply being present was participation enough. I was a part of the community just by being who I was.

Underneath the mayhem, Burning Man is perhaps the closest literal transfiguration of the phrase “organized chaos.” Even in the middle of a desert, Black Rock City runs like a successful city in many way that counts. It has a sewer system (over one thousand port-a-potties!), streetlights, market square (the “Center Camp”), yoga centers, dance floors, bars, restaurants, skating disco rink, fortune tellers, couple counseling, air strip, temples; and the entire five square miles is your art gallery. It even has a post office—for an earring and the shirt off my back I got stamps for my scraggly postcards that would carry the Black Rock City postmark out into the real world. By night, the scene transforms into a glowing Lewis Carollian dreamscape, where buildings, art cars, and humans light up and become self-illuminated participants of a collective crazy tea party.

The night of the sixth day saw the entire community gathered at the center of the city. The Man was going to burn. It took almost two hours for the fire to take off. Fireworks exploded into bouquets in the sky, amplifying the screams of 50,000 beating hearts, 1000 fire dancers courted and wooed the imminent, and throngs of drummers beat away with a frenetic energy. The effigy finally caught fire. A wondrous hush fell like a blanket over the sweating faces, before they immediately roared again, exultant and ceaseless, cheering with the sighs and crackles of the orange fire smoke, and after what felt like an eternity, the Man’s left leg buckled, bending metal shooting millions of sparks that rained like confetti into the night, then its right leg followed, folding right before our eyes and finally the structure collapsed into a giant heap of metal, wood, and ash, which continued to burn bright, illuminating the bodies of the people dancing in circles around it, relentless until sunrise.

The sky was a soft dark gray when I wrapped a blanket around myself and finally slept, close to the endless pile of hot white ashes. On the next night, the Temple burned. The Temple is a monument effigy for commemoration. Spontaneous expressions of memoriam—words, photographs, art—flood its insides. If the burn of the Man is a euphoric celebration of life, then the burn of the Temple is a solemn appreciation of the same thing. Each stands to attest to the other. The noisy crowd from yesterday stood watching the fire today in a silent awe. Instead of last night’s dancing, the crowd swayed and cradled with the flames, and by dawn I found myself once again falling asleep right next to the ashes, lulled into dream by the soft singsong voices around me.

Like any event that inspires consensus, Burning Man also attracts antithetical accounts. There are more than a few “demystification” claims that try to unpack the dream, to get to the “meaning behind it all”—that it’s simply a bunch of naked people running on drugs in the desert, claiming mysticism as a crutch—as if there is something like a real truth out there, and once the right needle comes along the balloon will burst.

But as I shook out my dust-caked hair and folded up my tent, I was rattling with an immediate, simple understanding, far, far simpler than any demystification claim. Substance-aided or not, mysticism or not, love or not, Burning Man itself is a mind-altering experience. And the mind, being an astoundingly adaptable thing, will soon find the sight of a man in a T-shirt to be more astonishing than a naked body, the sight of a plain sedan more jarring than a painted dragon bus. Yet these shifting paradigms are threaded together by an everyday normalcy.

The woman wearing nothing but a thin loincloth will lament the weather or the stinky bathrooms with you, then bid you a good day with a smile. The guy in the Satan face paint driving a medieval carriage is also a school teacher. He chats with you about “kids these days.” The guy giving out free ice creams in a skirt is also a volunteer paramedic for the event. Sometimes the juxtapositions are so startling that, whether or not you choose to subscribe to it—that rare moment, that flicker of mysticism—there it will be, dangling without stipulation, ripe and ready to offer you a glimpse into what lies beneath, but remains dangling until you choose to pluck and unfold it.

And that is just what Burning Man is: one of the few things in life that can make students out of even the most reluctant learners.
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The Wild by TroTro Window was filmed in the jungles of Mizoram, North East India on August 23rd 2012.

Cracks by TroTro Window was filmed in Tabo, North India on the 17th of May 2012.

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“And God said to the water come back to your land”, declared Said triumphantly. Proof, I am told, that it was somewhere along the belt of springs we now call the Western Desert Oases that Noah’s Ark finally hit landfall. “Here the water sleeps just below the ground” just as divinely ordained after the great Flood, and ever since has broken through the arid ground to feed the date palms and mint fields. It’s easy to see why the oases inspire such piety. Around the four isolated oases along the 1000km road from Cairo to Assyut, the palm trees bunch in phalanxes as if to guard their springs against the encroaching desert. The first fields flash green in the reddening yellow of sand and scree between the towns; smears of life in the scorched rock that have mesmerised natives and travellers alike for millennia.

For the settlements here are ancient. More than 10,000 years ago hunter-gatherers scattered across the lakes and savannah that is now the Great Sand Sea, littering the escarpments of Gilf Kebir with rock art of giraffe and ostriches. As the climate dried up, or the water receded back to the ground (depending on your doctrine), certain tribes laid the foundations for these waystations, rising to profit from trade routes from Libya and Sudan. Nestled between lush gardens and towering cliffs, Pharaonic tombs, Roman fortresses and early Christian refuges are hewn into rocky ridges. And now crumbling Islamic citadels, half eerily empty, half bristling with satellite dishes, watch over the sprawling new towns – the call to prayer from medieval minarets tussling with the dizzying rhythm of Arabic pop and the whirr of suped-up three-wheelers. Life still revolves around the harvest of the date crop and the irrigation of the fields, but water that used to be found at a depth of 30 metres now requires bore-holes of a kilometre or more.

The subterranean aquifers were once thought infinite, sparking General Nasser’s ambitious idea to make a second Nile Valley along this prehistoric route of the river. But the ‘New Valley’ project, as it became known, has proved a colossal failure; littering the land with half-built suburbs and pioneer farmers from Middle Egypt, who sit on the rocks between the towns watching their crops fry. Colonel Gaddafi’s Man-Made River Project has been no help, draining vast amounts of water from mysterious sources under the Sahara to irrigate Libya. Back in Egypt Mubarak’s plan to pipe water from the southern lakes predictably ran to a halt before reaching its first stop. The oases face an existential crisis, struggling to cope with more people and less irrigated land each year – but visit in spring, when even the breeze-blocks are sprouting hibiscus and oleander, and you would be forgiven for believing that the earth still loves its parasites.

When you’ve escaped the soulless new town, which generally resembles an abandoned film-set for some Central Asian backwater, each oasis offers immaculate groves and gardens, shrines to the miracle of water in the desert. Cows and horses graze between walls of palm-fronds, looking over banana trees and sugar-cane fields, and the warm spring-water bubbles along irrigation channels dressed in small purple flowers. Likewise if you can head off the main streets, dodging the 12-year-olds joy-riding their brothers’ motorbikes, you’ll find the engines lulled by the clap of donkey-traffic and the roads narrow to lanes in warrens of mud-brick enclosures. Yet each oasis retains its distinctive character. Bahariya’s proximity to Cairo means it is heavily reliant on tourism, and the streets are teeming with jeep-safari outfits desperately fighting over your custom. The cluster of shacks in the ‘capital’, Bawiti, with signs in French and English harks back to better days before the revolution, when tourists partied in the Bedouin camps on the border of the desert. But the romance lingers around the Tomb of Sheikh el-Bishmu, with its views (if you can blot out the water-pumping tower) of palms snaking into the sand, and the Pharaonic merchant-tombs with their vivid preserved reliefs. The town also hosts a ruined Temple of Alexander the Great, reputedly erected on his way back from the oracle at Siwa Oasis, and a cache of Golden Mummies with strikingly emotional features.

Across the volcanic meadows of the Black Desert and the statuesque moonscape of the White Desert, the tiny oasis of Farafra presents a more rural rhythm – less in tune with the tastes of tourists. The dense medieval fortress which once sheltered the town from roving nomads is now used as a municipal rubbish dump where kids fly kites in lanes teeming with plastic bags and rotten birds, trampling the remains of beaded and woven wares. But below the old town, a grid of allotments shows where the villagers place importance – on precious date palms, banana groves and rice plantations. Here, stumbling upon villagers gathered intently around a water paddy, I found myself at a dead end and, embarrassed, excused myself. Smiling, they led me to an orange tree and stuffed my hands full of fruit, talking excitedly in Arabic and gesticulating wildly. Confused I tried to give them money, murmuring “baksheesh?” Out of the rapid flow of words that returned I could make out only one: “baytak” – “your home”.

Across the oases this unlooked-for hospitality endured. In Kharga, among whose dusty boulevards I had despaired of finding authentic oasis-life, I was feasted beneath a stranded trio of palms with foul and bread, sugar and mint tea and a sheesha pipe made out of old cans and bottles. In Dakhla, I was fed dates by locals as I lounged in a hot spring, and given a bizarre snack of fresh fruit and Twinkies by a man on the bus. Save for a couple of Koreans in Bahariya, I saw no tourists all week – they were locked in the Red Sea resorts by FCO warnings and media sensationalism. Yet I was greeted with none of the aggressive desperation that pervades Luxor; rather with a kind of cheerful bewilderment. For once I seemed to get local prices for tea, falafal and sheesha. But inevitably from time to time, I ran into hoteliers and tour guides whose eyes gleamed gold when they saw me. The shining, slicked-back hair mingled with the easy sleaze of the conversation – “Haaaaaay habibi, Spicetian! My spicy brother, you invite me for beera yeah?”

“Sure, Eslam, come join me”

“Noo, my friend, my brother is watching, give me money and I buy and drink secret. 2 beera yeah?”

“well… I guess”

Round the corner Eslam pockets the money, probably goes down the coffeeshop to pass the time, and comes back later. “Ahh Spice beera was great. You invite me again?”

“NO.”

Yet those episodes were rare. More often the lack of tourists was a blessing, emptying the mesmerising medieval town of Al-Qasr, near Dakhla, until only the most stoical locals remained to walk donkeys through the silent streets. Each had a job, one to fetch the keys, one to open the mosque, one to man the sleeping museum. I was guided alone, through abandoned schools and justice-houses, blacksmiths and 10th century palaces built on Pharaonic doorways to the sound of our shuffling feet and crows nesting in the minarets. Likewise, on the edge of Kharga, the tours had abandoned the desert necropolis of Bagawat, built by early Coptic Christians exiled by the Roman rulers. Here I lay in tombs with doorways shaped like crosses, marvelling at Biblical scenes painted vividly on the domed roofs. The layering of history was evident in the similarities between the Coptic cross and Ancient Egyptian ankh (hieroglyph signifying life), and the direct relation of the languages. Further into the desert, imposing Roman fortresses still guard the Forty Days Road where they once imposed taxes on the lucrative trade from Darshur to Assyut (this same route through the Sahara later became famous as a major artery of the African slave trade).

The oases offer magnificent ruins straddling millennia, but all united by a dependence on irrigation systems that harness the precious miracle of desert life – spring water. It is perhaps this reliance that forms the unique character of the local people; both humbled by the fragility of life in the awesome desert, and proud that their thin strip of desert can boast such unimaginable fertility. Yet no strength of character can protect their way of life from the invading desert. In time, without massive investment from the government and stringent agricultural laws, the oases will fade away with the water and leave sand-swept husks behind. As intervention seems less and less likely, it is that same tourist I so enjoyed avoiding that might provide a lifeline for these poor communities. After all, there are few better places to expect a miracle than the landing place of Noah’s Ark.

Sebastian Lennox

 If you enjoyed this piece, more photos by Sebastian of the Western Oases can be found here  whilst his blog excellently details more of his travels. He’s also on Twitter. 

Traditional Burmese fishing ships

The Old and the new

Street Scene

Monks of Old

Burmese Children in typically eclectic dress

Traditional Smoking

Buddhist Shrine

River Worker

Mother and Child

 All photos are Copyright @ The Wanderer