pattycakes
Well-known member
There's not much hope of it working out here now. Visa is the only option and it basically isn't happening
Homeless ...again!
- Thread starter pattycakes
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pattycakes
Well-known member
mixed_biscuits
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Do mechanical Turk work?
shakahislop
Well-known member
crete has a particular light no. that middle eastern thing. bright glistening colours. i spent a week cycling there, it was an incredibly bad choice, literally nonstop hills. dragging the bike uphill up dirt tracks. but mad colours. red earth, dark blue sky
shakahislop
Well-known member
it was pretty rough to be honest. we were free camping. there were some amazing moments. cresting a hill and coming to a ridge over a valley. almost hallucinatory colours down below. cycling with no lights on a coast road after a couple of beers
william_kent
Well-known member
recently I had a moment when I saw the Abbot of a religious order dedicated to a wrathful Buddha escorted down a pebbly path by acolytes wielding umbrellas which were shading him from the harsh rays of the SUN and I almost imagined giving up everything so I could dedicate myself to holding a parasol aloft
but according to contemporary mystics I was a BAD MONK in the past, so I'm not sure I should replicate previous poor moves on the wheel of samsara
pattycakes
Well-known member
This requires resources and equipment or nice handwriting. None of which I possess
shakahislop
Well-known member
i did loads of those bike trips at one point. the toughest ones were that one in crete and one in israel and the west bank. france was always the easiest and frankly the best. italy and spain were good too but harder logistically. england was always fun and very easy but less interesting. with a new country you never really know what you're getting into and once you're there you don't have much of a choice, you have to go with it. it's glorious though. as a traveller it's ideal because you have to see every part of a country. you see the industrial estates and the countryside. you see the edges of cities. you see river tracks and mountain roads. you sit in fields and drink. you see bars in small towns and coffee shops in petrol stations. you have to ask for help.
there's an ascetic thing going on, between the exertion and sleep deprivation. single minded focus. i banned lycra and for a long time managed to get away with banning fancy bikes. we bought cheap second hand 100 euro bikes when we landed, did quick modifications and sold or abandoned them at the end. we crossed the alps and the pyrenees, proper mountain climbs. there's camaraderie. you see so much of your fellow travellers faces, you wake up next to them, you eat with them. and you have to work together on everything. you are interdependent on a fundamental level. you notice a soft chair when you've been sitting on the floor for a week. you become a kind of celebrity in small towns. or at least when we were in our 20s people looked at us and for at least some people there was a kind of sense of: these guys are in their element. they're doing exactly what they should be doing.
it was good to get more ragged and dirty as the trip passed. there's an element of it which is about altered states. the trips always ended in a big city and you'd get there and have to readjust. back into our normality. you got so lean and strong as well, even after a week. i never got to the end of one without wanting to just keep going. ok apart from the one in israel that was a proper slog. sometimes i think it was a punishment for being on occupied land.
shakahislop
Well-known member
there's a lot to be said for going outside of the grid. we all know the grid i think and it feels like it's getting more rigid than ever. more optimised. it doesn't need to be a black and white thing where you find a plan for doing it forever. maybe that would be better idk. but these little windows where you interact with the world in a different way are at a minimum fun, at maximum instructive and profound. there's a similarity with psychedelics i think. i don't think it's escapism. i think it's the opposite actually. it's very focused