** click here for website PHOTO GALLERY - hit on Slideshow top-right for music

North Yorkshire MoorsLion Inn, N Yorkshire Moors EPILOGUE – July 2018

Up on Blakey Ridge, as steep as it is breathtaking, the old Lion Inn sits like a citadel, a remote outpost for weary hikers. Plodding into the courtyard, I slipped my backpack off with a theatrical grunt, letting my poles clatter to the ground, and said to a man having a pint of beer at a picnic table: “I don’t know why I’m doing this!”

As if on cue, the stranger leapt to his feet and blurted back: “Neither do I!”

“Aaayyyeeeeeee“ – his Scottish accent echoing against the inn’s stone walls.

He had driven here to meet friends, covering in three hours a distance that would take us 14 days on this 200-mile coast-to-coast walk.

We shared a laugh, half in earnest and half in jest, because we both knew good reasons often breed insanity. Not to suggest the beloved Wainwright trail is crazy hard; the world is filled with more daring challenges. Still, it can be surprisingly arduous, especially if the weather turns sour, especially for those who have never long-distance trekked before, like me.

This was day 13, crossing the North York Moors National Park toward Robin Hood’s Bay. You could almost smell the salty North Sea. Fatigue is refueled by adrenaline as the finish nears, the sheer magnificence of scenery inspiring each step forward.

The Lion Inn, the halfway mark of this day’s long 20-mile walk, was a splendid location to reflect on the journey, soaking in the present before it becomes memory.

Why am I doing this?

The lure of the great outdoors? Northern England is indeed enchanting, the trail varying one day to the next, from slippery fells to humid pinewood forests, flowery fields to shimmering tarns, squeezing through stiles and crossing countless wooden gates into enclosed pastures – sheep and rock walls everywhere; moorland, stony summits, bucolic dales, slate-roofed hamlets … It has all been mesmerizing, even for a city guy, gobsmacked by street scenes as much as by natural wonders. But that wasn’t the answer.

To get fit and lose weight? Fat chance. English cuisine used to be an oxymoron, but no longer. The food along the way is simply stupendous, even (or especially) for vegetarians at the ubiquitous inns and pubs, where muddy boots and paws are welcome.

Because I have blood cancer? Because I wanted a physical adventure, five years after being paralyzed with Guillain-Barré syndrome? Because I hoped to shoot great pictures? Because I yearned for a spiritual experience?

All noble causes, but again, not exactly.

I am doing this because, as comedian Steven Wright wryly said: “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”

Simple as that. Yorkshire DalesYorkshire Dales

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REAL TIME POSTS

May 20, 2018

From the Irish Sea headed east, inland across fields of heather and purple bells, pastures of sheep and grazing cattle, through enchanting woods of conifer and pine, winding up atop a plateau and back down steep inclines to scraggly valleys of sedge brush and babbling brooks, day 1 of the Coast-to-Coast walk, 15 miles to Ennerdale Bridge in northern England, is a site to behold.

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May 22

Every step counts. One wrong footfall can end the long walk abruptly. Day 2 of the C2C journey, 15 hilly miles from Ennerdale to Rosthwaite, was a mix of tricky terrain - strewn rocks in the fells, sharp slippery slabs of shale, boulders and climbs to negotiate... You must look down at your feet as much as up at the magnificent scenery. Still, stop, breathe in the clean crisp air, listen to the water rushing down the mountain, consider your luck.

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May 23

Unless you have a GPS gizmo, compass savvy or divine guidance, it’s easy to get lost along Wainwright’s Coast to Coast, the least signposted trail in Britain (because it’s unofficial, albeit highly popular). Day 3 began with a wrong turn out of Rosthwaite. Up a clearing we went, into a humid forested hill, scooting tangled branches and mossy stones, covering a half mile in 30 sweaty minutes, a footpath for sure, only one that headed north, as we soon discovered, not east to Grasmere, our next target 9 miles away. I scrambled down and met an elderly couple out for a short hike. They were amused by our waywardness, the woman saying in her gentle motherly way: it matters not, just enjoy wherever you are. 
Words of wisdom for another day of dramatic climbs, first a constant slope up the flanks of a valleys then up a rocky ridge so steep it loomed over us like the temple of Zeus; two thousand feet high, far above the melting water flows but still amid bleating sheep, we hoisted ourselves up on hands and knees against gnarly rocks tinseled with tufts of wool. 

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May 24

Whoever said England is flat is invited to try the Wainwright Coast to Coast trail. Starting from the west, the stunning Lake District serves up altitude - mountain after mountain for the first four days of the 14–day excursion, gifts that keep on giving over some 60 miles. Granted, it’s not like attacking the Matahorn: there is no mountaineering involved, just grueling ascents and descents on often rocky, wet terrain that’ll have your legs burning, lungs heaving and pride tingling when you raise a cold pint at the end of day. 
The views from high above never fail to awe, and the marshy plateaus are images of serenity, with shimmering lakes, stone walls extending down the dales, and windswept moors speckled white with Cotton Grass in the springtime, when everything is lush. CumbriaHaweswater
The exertion was tough (and perhaps underestimated) but we thanked our luck with every step as sunshine and cooling breezes prevailed each day - which is unusual.
The next 8 days are tamer in elevation, but we will have gone up and down the equivalent of Mt Everest by the end of the 200-mile journey, at the shores of the North Sea in the east.
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May 26

Early morning, I stood on a rising hill, off the trail, before an old wooden gate enclosing a pasture and grazing sheep, a rustic barn to my left and green fields of the Lake District rolling beyond. I raised the camera to my eye and lingered, patient for composition, hoping for the sheep to turn just so, when I noticed a fellow hiker, an Englishwoman of about 60, standing by my side. She watched quietly, her partner (another woman about the same age) waiting a little ways off. I shot a few frames, then greeted her by asking with complicity, “Would you like my spot to take a picture?” She demurred and said, “Oh no, thank you,” and began swinging the gate open. “I’m going for a moment of comfort.” Good for you, I said, and thought: how wonderful, she chose this splendid location to rest her wary bones. She added: “It’s not that easy for us, you know.” I took this to mean ‘women of a certain age’ - it sure is a strenuous walk for anyone along the C2C walk. I said: “You have all my admiration,” and went on my way. It was many steps later that I realized, a little foolishly, that she had been talking about going to the loo.

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May 28

The trail is full of wonders, but the small towns and villages that dot the northern English countryside along the Coast to Coast Kirkby StephenKirkby Stephen track, like Kirkby Stephen, are simply delightful.

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May 29

Leaving behind the Lake District for the North Yorkshire Dales, the hills turn kinder, the fields glisten yellow with meadow buttercup and ox-eye daisy, and the constant parade of sheep becomes more varied, some with elongated faces like llama, others wooly like carefree bleating hipsters. Every which way, dry stone walls of incredible workmanship etch the land like lines of domino tiles awaiting the first push. On the high plateaus, the wind rumbles across the grassy moors, deafening and cold, and by sheer luck of unusual dry weather, keeps the bogs from swallowing us whole. It’s a delight to the senses. In Keld, the Coast to Coast trail marks its halfway point, 100 miles from either the Irish or North Seas. Nearby, along the rocky, meandering River Swale flanked by bucolic valleys, sits Muker - a quintessential English village of stone houses and mining history, where today wanderers and tourists can have midday tea and scones (with clotted cream and strawberry jam) amid ravishing beauty. There’s ample reason to cheer making it this far, but no hubris please, there’s still a long way ahead.
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May 30

Dry (no mortar) stone walls are mesmerizing, by their grace, strength, age and ubiquitousness along the Coast to Coast walk. Most in northern England were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, when land was granted to common folk, and the need arose to contain stock and create boundaries. The stones usually came from within the property, dug up by clearing the fields for grazing. The rockier the terrain, the thicker the walls. It’s baffling, if not unfathomable, how such solid structures lining the landscape were built so artfully from grunt work.
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OrtonSheep and Church, Orton May 31

Like generations before me, I succumbed to the charm of Richmond, a gem of a market town in North Yorkshire. Rather than walk a relatively plain 23 miles to Ingleby Cross, the next stop along the Coast to Coast trail (through fog and rain and soggy fields as it turned out), I chose to stay put, roam about the cobblestone streets, poke through twisted alleys and soak in the quaintness and history. Richmond grew around an imposing castle built by Alan of Brittany in the 11th-century to repel the Scots. Nowadays it remains an iconic structure open for visits and offers great views from the tower of the locality. This week, alas, a roving fair with rickety rides and carnival games vulgarized the town square, like cheap trinkets in a noble house. So be it, a little color. Everyone I met was so friendly and eager to chat. Like that councilman carting off yellow cutouts of bicycles that decorated the streets for the Tour de Yorkshire, a leg of a recent road race. Like Jefferson, who served me the most savory tomato and grilled pepper soup in his grocery RichmondRichmond, Frenchgate street café, a place the size of a snooker table. Like the Turkish barber who was proud to let me photograph his shop as part of my global ongoing series. Like Edwina, who served me high tea at, well, Edwina’s, a local favorite bakery. What a fine way to take a break (and a few footsteps) from the 200-mile walk (which resumed today, I assure you).
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June 1

Just another day for a nice stroll in North Yorkshire, across forests of silver birch, slippery terrain thick and rich brown like chocolate mousse, open moorland swaying with heather, hamlets graced with relic graveyards and climbs rewarded by magnificent vistas. Two days to go in the 200-mile Coast to Coast trek, from some hilltops we can see the North Sea.

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June 2

One last day, one last mountain, one last moor, and a final 17-mile push along the coast to coast trail in North Yorkshire, heading to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Sea, and the completion of the 200-mile walking journey. My feet will hate me for weeks, but I’ll have stories to tell for some time.

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June 4

With every stretch traveled, my posts have gotten plainer, eloquence worn down by fatigue. I’m knackered. My calves are popping, my knees are creaking and my blistered toes are suing me for damages. Walking northern England’s Coast to Coast from St-Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay, 200 miles in 14 days, is a euphoric adventure and a test of endurance. You point at a farm in the distance nestled in a kaleidoscope of green pastures, or at a range of mountains jagging the misty horizon, and you exclaim out loud in mock disbelief: “We have to walk all the way there?” Because it’s funny, because humor (or at least a lightness of being) carries you forward as much as muscle, because striding for 9 hours can be mind numbing, because distance no longer matters when you’re crossing a country. 
At Grosmont, an aptly named village at the foot of a fat hill, we panted like ladened mules working our way up a hill so steep our noses scraped the pavement. A woman emerged from her yard. “You live here?” I snipped comically, implying: Are you crazy. “Oh no,” she said, “We’re just staying here.” I said: “Of course you’re staying here, because once you go in, you don’t want to go out!” She laughed. How many Coasters has she watched lumber by? “Yes, I know it’s a killer, but at least you can work off those fish and chips.” Cheeky woman, couldn’t she see my plumpness was entirely vegetarian?
It was our last day, our final push to picturesque Robin Hood’s Bay along the North Sea, where hills like a rollercoaster awaited us along the high cliff shore. We arrived disheveled from a long day of rain, through slick forest beds where the pungent scent of garlic flowers permeated the humid air, slogging across boggy moors that sank our feet to the ankles, dodging highway traffic where nature’s paths ended and started up again, into a viscous trail of gnarly roots, deep mud and slippery rocks, and yes, amidst extraordinary beauty, having succeeded out of stubbornness and joy.
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near Robin Hood's Bay, North SeaNorth Sea coast near Robin Hood's Bay

Montreal is celebrating its 375th birthday this year but the grand old dame is thick in reconstructive surgery. Everywhere you look things are being built up, dug out, renovated, bulldozed or just left in disarray for its turn on the jackhammer list. rue St-Denis, festivalMONTREAL2017

It’s as though a whistle blew and everything, everywhere, had to be done (or redone) all at once, not just imploding freeway interchanges or excavating canyons for more condo towers, but sewer systems in the leafy side-streets, or tennis courts in the central park, or the gravelly path leading up the mountain. Entire new districts, like Griffintown by the canal, seem to have sprung up like glass and concrete mushrooms. I haven’t been back to my hometown for nearly two years and, from some angles, I couldn’t recognize the Montreal skyline. I mean, it’s always a bit crazy in the summer, when the ravages of ice and salt turn the streets into pot-holed slalom courses, making the season a boon for shock absorbers and wheel alignments. But the quantity of unfinished work this year is truly breathtaking – astounding as it is infuriating.

On the bright side, in this incredible disorder on this very special year, with a record number of people visiting, Montreal is clearly declaring itself as a city of the future, no question. “Excuse our Dust” – that should have been tourism ministry’s slogan.

or:

* Orange Coneville has Zest!

* Pylon Our City

* Detourtown This Way

Call it what you want.

Yet one thing remains unchanged, unflappable. Leonard CohenMONTREAL2017

To the mess and chaos and frustration, add: Effervescence. Exultation. Exuberance.

When the warm days arrive, nothing can stomp the Montreal spirit, its joie de vivre, its euphoria.

An old joke says: “There are three seasons in Quebec: July, August and Winter.”

That’s only a slight exaggeration.

Summers are not only short, they are precious, personal triumphs over the interminable harsh winters. There is not a moment to waste. Each day seems filled with ambition, with purpose and levity, a restoration of the soul incomprehensible to anyone who has not endured the cold dark stretch of November thru March.  Summer days could be hot and humid but who’s complaining? The evening air is pierced by cicadas promising a fine tomorrow. Rain literally falls on parades.

Summer is like rapture, attained at big public shindigs or in solitary walks in the park.

You could see it on people’s faces, hear it in their voices when they stop at street corners to chat with friends, straddling their bicycles, unhurried; how they relax on their balconies on sultry evenings, lawn chairs unfolded and beer flowing; how terraces across the city overflow with hardy folk shedding cabin fever.

Montreal is a walkable city, urbane but cozy, fairly safe and very charming; it has a sidewalk culture, where unlike, say, Las Vegas, being out does not mean knowing where you’re going. Chances are there’s something to see, a festival somewhere: Jazz, Dance, Song, Fireworks, Comedy (Just Pour Rire); a festival for Beer, for Murals, for Gay Pride, and even oddly a Lobster festival!

There’s the annual Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Film Festival, the indie Osheaga multi-day music & arts festival, the Tennis Open, pro Football, pro Soccer … but no baseball. Not any more. Honestly how can a team survive playing in a dank, domed stadium when so much indulgence, so many temptations, beckon outside?

Let it all out. Suck it all in. Time is a bubble. Blvd St-Laurent @ NapoleonMONTREAL2017

Not surprisingly, this year, despite the inadvertent (and bungled) Construction Festival – Montreal celebrated its 375^th with more pomp, particularly around the old town, with large-scale projection shows, historical tributes, art exhibits, street performances, food fairs, music concerts or some sort of revelry liable around any corner.

So happy birthday “Ville Marie”, “City of a Hundred Steeples”, my forever home! As we both age, we both change, and I continue to see you with fresh eyes.

Please visit my photo gallery here for some of my favorite shots made over a 4-week span this summer 

(NB: if you click on slideshow (top-right of page) on a computer, you also get classic Quebecois music!)

Sept 2017

Durango DinerUta at Diner

August 2017

Durango Diner Durango Diner

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And that’s just a start. But first, pit stop: Montreal.

route 13 PA

PHOENIXRevolver Records

Saturday evening I drove down a main drag, heading west by the Sandra Day O'Connor courthouse and City Hall. Gorgeous sunlight bathed barren buildings, a palette of colors jarring against the quiet eeriness. It was a scene out of the Dawn of the Living Dead. Then, suddenly, two blocks to the left at a cross street, I glimpsed a flurry of activity, a bevy of people milling about... what? A string of restaurants? An entrance to the theater? an open-air festival? I pulled a U at the next turn to check it out. As I got closer, I slowly rolled on, aghast, realizing the sad truth: this was skid row.

PHOENIXWindsor Hotel

I don't know the population of homeless and downtrodden in Phoenix, but it's not small. And this is their neighborhood. They congregate here for support, food, shelter, safety and friendship - the very embodiment of misery loving company. People spilling everywhere, like a refugee camp, like an outdoor fair. The cluster extends for blocks, shocking as it is heartbreaking. I've seen skid rows before - in LA where it's of biblical proportions, and at home in Las Vegas, just a few steps north of the dubious fantasy of the Fremont Street Experience.

What hit me in Phoenix is how so little else seemed alive in the city core.

Photos of Phoenix, Arizona gallery: http://www.armandthomas.com/p573487416#h8b4eabf6

View other galleries at homepage: http://www.armandthomas.com/

Christchurch today is a mix of rebuild and relic. It’s surreal, like an enormous film set going up in one swoop, or a giant Meccano toy of cranes and girders. 

There are stark reminders of the wreckage everywhere; it is widespread and mesmerizing. But there’s also a palpable sense of optimism and opportunity and hope. As one local Kiwi put it: “We don’t give a toss about brick and mortar… nothing is permanent.”

Indeed, the recovery itself is now what visitors gawk at in this once genteel Britannic town where even the river is called the Avon.

Besides the new-wave glass and steel structures going up, there are shipping containers everywhere – some transformed into shopping and eatery outlets, others stacked in sturdy columns in front of beloved old buildings in case they fall before being saved.

Swaths of areas are fenced off in what was once downtown: banners proclaim a new Performance Arts Precinct coming here, a modern Convention Center Precinct there, A Retail Precinct, A remodeled Town Square, a refurbished riverside park – the city is a quasi-blank canvas for creativity and possibilities.

We’re here in this special city at this peculiar time, enduring early morning construction noise and late-night tremors, to close Quidam for good on Friday night, Feb 26.

We’re delighting sold-out crowds at the Arena, as folks have both affection for our show and a longing to cheer something magical. It’s a fitting venue to end a remarkable 20-year run, providing us all an example of resilience, a backdrop of courage and a reminder that if you feel the earth shake and see the sky fall as the end comes, it’s time to dust yourself off, take a deep breath and forge ahead. Renew.

CHCH2016 Photo Gallery here

Hit the slideshow button (top-right) to rock it with LedZep.

Not the laughing, big-belly Chinese type - but the elongated, closed-eye, meditative figure - the image of serenity and peacefulness.

It's a beautiful face, one that reflects a soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, fair-minded people; a Zen-like face born from years of isolation and tranquility within the secluded forests of Southeast Asia, you would think.

And you would think wrong.

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic -- and the many kingdoms that once comprised its territory -- never had it easy.

Tough neighborhood, for eons.

Never strong nor populous, Laos has been dominated in one form or another, by one overlord or another. Landlocked by its powerful neighbors - Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and (gulp) China – Laos has been the proverbial pawn on the Indochinese chessboard for centuries. When the Western colonial era began in the 19^th century, followed by the rise of Communism in the 20^th, the geopolitical squeeze only got hotter.

Then came the Vietnam War. And the collateral damage on Laos.

Consider this:

From 1964 to 1973, American warplanes dropped over 2 million tons of bombs over Laos in 580,000 bombing missions, the equivalent of one planeload every 8 minutes, 24 hours-a-day, for 9 years.  

You might want to re-read that paragraph, because it boggles the mind.

That’s more bombs than were dropped on Germany and Japan combined in WWII – making docile, charming little Laos one of the most heavily bombed places on earth.

Who knew?

At that time, too few.

It was called the Secret War. Technically, Laos was neutral following the Geneva Convention and the US did not publicly acknowledge waging one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in the history of warfare. The intended target was the North Vietnamese, and notably the Ho Chi Min trail that snaked through Laos into South Vietnam.

When the war finally ended, not only was Laos very literally blown to bits, but it's educated class - who in large supported the royalist anti-communists – were either neutralized or had fled. Brain drain, money drain, land drain. In 1975, Laos officially kicked out the monarchy and became communist - realizing America's fears of having the red hammer-and-sickle fly over the nation.

My apologies for this glib nutshell of history.

It’s against this backdrop that travel in Laos comes into focus – at once enchanting and disturbing. It’s a place of wonder and humility, where feelings of awe and shame tug at your heartstrings. And so while I marveled and succumbed to the mystique of Laos, I also shuddered a lot.

I loved renting a scooter and riding out across suspension bridges, following dirt roads flanked by rice fields and limestone hills, stopping at hidden temples and isolated hamlets, where homes have dirt floors and meals are cooked in blackened kettles over wood fire, where weaving looms are as common as satellite dishes and the air is pierced by the screeches of schoolchildren playing during recess.

I hated that 80 million cluster bomblets (about one-third of those dropped during the campaign) failed to detonate and remain buried in the countryside, maiming and killing hundreds of people each year, a generation after the horror ended. Bomb casings and shrapnel are so common they have been turned into artifacts, pieces of jewelry, road signposts and souvenir trinkets.

I loved strolling aimlessly in the towns, admiring colonial architecture, photographing everyday scenes that to me seemed magical, and meeting locals with a Sabaidee, which was always returned with a warm smile. I’ve rarely been among more gracious, unassuming people.

I hated how tourists, entitled and immodest, made a circus out of tak bat – the monks’ solemn morning collection of food and alms – breaking the dawn light with their frenzy of camera flashes and loud ignorance, and turning a ceremonial way of life into a gaudy spectacle..

I loved the ingrained, almost mythical beauty of Luang Prabang, a gem of city once the seat of the Kingdom, spared from destruction 50 years ago mainly because it inhabited the American allies. I regret how it has become a tourist magnet, but alas, that’s the fate of progress, and the cost of repute. Fancy restaurants, flourishing markets, adventure tours, boutique hotels – the secret of Luang Prabang is waning.

Most notably, LP is home to about 30 golden temples and one thousand monks. In there bright saffron robes, they are iconic to the fabric of the city, and are often very eager to meet foreigners in their courtyards.

It’s here, at Vat Sop Sickharam in the old town, that I made new friends in young novices: Nark, Mong-ki, Throng, and Alien, so nicknamed by the others because he was, well, a peculiar prankster.

Nark is 17 and has been at the Vat for 7 years. He hopes to stay another 5, then be accepted to a monk university, a highly competitive privilege which leads to more opportunities. Nark is ambitious, he craves to practice his English, as many do, but his eagerness is resolute.

I spent a few mornings with him over the course of my week in Luang Prabang, going over the difference between “For” and “Since”... explaining to him as I formulated it to myself.

We practiced verb tenses and read paragraphs from a book he was given by a foreigner, Nark using his busted-glass smart phone to look up new words, relying on the spotty Wi-Fi signal from a nearby hotel.

We chatted about meditation, having conviction (his word), the “merit” lay people earn by delivering food to the temple, and his wish to return to his village one day to help others learn English.

Other novice monks, young boys in orange robes, came and went about us – making jokes, carrying laundry, playing games, casual and unhurried in this morning lull between tak bat and school. These encounters brought me as much pleasure as it did them.

I asked Nark if he followed world events, through his smart phone or whatever. He did not. But he liked to watch American movies, to hear the language, if the Wi-Fi was strong enough.

I asked if he knew about the history of Laos, what had happened in a past not so very long ago. I was conflicted asking this, wondering if I was being indecent, as if sullying his purity with the dirty truths of humanity. But no, he did not know. He heard there was a lot of fighting, but not much more.

Oddly, I felt envious. Here was the very embodiment of ignorance being blissful. And I wasn’t about to upset that.

~ dedicated to my friend Marvin, in my thoughts on the road - RIP

Vientiane, the capital by the Mekong river, was once known as Vien Chang, but the French colonials of Indochine days changed the name and some of its culture forever. Street names begin with rue, the national Library is the Biblioteque, housed in one of the many exquisite (and faded) architectural gems of the Belle Epoque, and bakeries everywhere offer succulent croissants and baguettes. 

Off with the business suits and high-heelded fashion - hello sarongs and flip-flops. The people are sweet-natured and unhurried. Traffic is heavier than you'd expect, far too many cars, motorbikes and SUVs for the narrow streets, which clog easily and become putrid with heavy fumes, somewhat spoiling my idyl on a rented scooter the other day.

Even the most languid of capitals can't escape the stench of progress.

As the sun sets, the riverside comes alive with a night market, a campus of tents and stalls set up along the main strip. On an empty parcel overlooking the Mekong, with Thailand across the water, people gather for a energetic fitness aerobic class. Not exactly what you'd expect to see on your first night in this faraway land, but really, what was I thinking? A herd of elephants bathing by the shore? Agh, get real. 

Seoul has a lot going for it: a humming economy, high employment, virtually no crime and no garbage on the streets. In fact, there aren’t even any garbage bins around, so if you treat yourself to a roasted ear of corn at a stall, be ready to carry the damn nub around. There are no dirty magazines either. No teenyboppers showing their undies to commuting businessmen (hello Japan!). No titty bars or porn on the Internet (hello Big Brother). Tattoos are a rarity – way too provocative for the mainstream.

A colleague of mine on Quidam was requested to cover his leg ink if he wanted to work out at the hotel gymnasium. The radical!

The last time anyone consumed drugs in South Korea was Ben Johnson in the 88 Olympics – or so it seems. I never appreciated what a scandal that truly was until now.

Seoul is literally safe and figuratively sober – even the Buddhist monks here dress in grey. But getting drunk on Soju and staggering out of bars is as much a rite of hardworking salarymen as it is for their Tokyo sake-swilling counterparts. The most prevalent vice, if it can be called that, is an unadulterated addiction to caffeine. Coffee shops abound nearly as much as Korean BBQ joints, and both are flooded with patronage day and night. It’s as if nobody cooks at home.

Whether due to diet, genes or stress, fat people are as rare as vegetarians. I, for one, am both - no thanks to the scarcity of options at restaurants. A veggie meal here can include chicken, or beef broth, and a high likelihood of being infused with fish sauce. So, bring on the bread, cheese, pizza, and pasta … and pounds.

Koreans do love their meats. Pork, Beef, Chicken, Dog. Yep, hot Dog.

“Gaegogi” is not as common today as it once was, but still part of the menu in many traditional restaurants and local customs. In the past few years, vocal groups have decried the practice, especially for its brutality and inhumane butchering methods. Legend has it that the more the animal suffers, the more invigorating the medicinal properties of its meat. 

Some 2 million dogs are slaughtered for meat each year (and about 100,000 cats, why not?).  Most are bred in farms, but some start off as pets before they're turned into stew. I’ll spare you more details.

On my last days in Seoul, I found this so appalling and abhorrent that I wanted to go out into the neat and tidy streets and kick people’s shins, piss on their sublime subways, throw mud on their cashmere coats and run a key across their swanky Hyundais.

How could they?

But my indignity for Fido turned into cold reflection – every year in America, 35 million cows, 110 million pigs, 9 billion chickens are turned into food.

Koreans, some of them anyway, don’t really see the difference between man's best friend and other animals. At least not on the dinner plate.

Should they?

Please use the link below for my new Seoul photo collection, and click the "Slideshow" button to add music

http://www.armandthomas.com/p553070895/h6f31341b#h6f31341b

How odd to be in this futuristic, gleaming city of fashion, skyscrapers and international pop stars, and to know that just over there, beyond a border 35 miles away from Seoul, the kinfolk are oppressed, malnourished and pretending to adore the haircut of their dictator, that nice Mr. Un.

In fact, it's only the Demilitarized Zone that's so close, a large swath of land so vacant of inhabitants that wildlife has flourished in the area. The infamous DMZ, the most fortified checkpoint in the world, where rival soldiers stare each other down with pointed rifles, is a tourist hotspot, where visitors (from the South side of course) can pay $40 to feel the tension and absorb the absurdity.

But it's no joke, sadly. The Koreas declared an armistice 62 years ago, so technically the war never ended. Hostility is as real as the difference of ideology – and while one side regales itself in the lap of luxury, the Hermit Kingdom is the embodiment of paranoia and hardship.

What did Frankie Valli croon? “So close, so close and yet so faa-arr…”

Odd. Very odd. And it’s not as if we’re contrasting neighbors like Mexico and America, or China and India. Here, we have shared lineage, ancestral legacies, brothers and sisters, family. They are one, save for the politics. Like Germans once were after WWII, only weirder.

Yet, in Seoul’s everyday life, the situation is practically invisible. There are occasional demonstrations, anti-communist rallies and spikes of protests that hit the news - but on the whole, the divide is not topical. It doesn’t command attention or interrupt the idyll. Like a lousy breakup you’d rather forget. It’s too painful to dwell upon, perhaps. At least, that how it looks like to us strangers.

It’s always hard to tell. Koreans can be inscrutable. Theirs is a bowing culture, full of ceremony and decorum. They are demure, reserved and regimented. Posh and proper Seoul is orderly, people conform, abide by the rules, adhere to programmed efficiency that breeds success. That same sort of indoctrination, propaganda - call it brainwashing - is at work in the North, where fear and tyranny make the populace appear in step with its leadership, united in its cause, disciplined and resolute.

The pandemonium fans display at a baseball game in the South eerily resembles the hysterical cheering North Koreans lavish on their Supreme Leader. It’s manic yet calculated, a way of life, of fitting in, of compliance, of self-preservation.

You can rip the nation in two, but you can’t split the DNA.

New Seoul photo gallery coming soon on this website

carrying the device like precious treasure, elbow crooked and hand for holster, as if plugged into a human battery pack, a life-support appliance, an extension of their very being in this futuristic world.

Trend-happy Koreans perhaps feel uncomfortable, untethered, without their mobiles - out of step, out of order. Naked.

It makes for a droll and twisted conundrum, like a Steven Wright joke (remember him? “Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways…”) – Why are folks in the best-wired city in the entire world so virtually disconnected?

The answer flutters right there on the South Korean flag (and no, that’s not the Pepsi Cola logo, you wags!)

Yin and Yang – the duality of life, the opposites that compliment, the light that gives meaning to darkness, the give and take, the sweet and sour, Abbott and Costello… ok, you get the point.

Korea, as much as anywhere else on the globe, is a culture of paradox, of profound contradictions. It’s a society at the confluence of tradition and modernity, of ancient temples and imposing high-rises, of booming prosperity and a dreadful suicide rate… And, of unrivaled broadband and a zombie-like citizenry that lives within cyber-bubbles.

There’s a price to pay for high technology beyond the monthly fees.

Crossing the street, riding a motorbike, behind the store counter, out for dinner, inside the big top … the addiction is unremitting. 

And nowhere is the mobile phonemania, I mean phenomena, more prevalent than in the sublime Seoul subway. No, I haven’t seen every metro system in the world, but good luck finding one that equals Seoul’s, in its ultra efficiency, cleanliness, citywide coverage, and meticulous design.

It must also be the quietest, most passive and orderly mass transit system anywhere, not because of soft rubber tires or stern policing, but because everyone, or just about, is enrapt, consumed, hypnotized by their very, very smart phones.

Riding the phenomenal (and tranquil) Seoul Metro - VIDEO:

seoul subway cells

So, here we go: prologue in Seoul.

~

It’s not something you notice straight away.

Traffic in Seoul looks fairly normal, heavy at times, yet always orderly, like so much else in this megalopolis of 10 million inhabitants. Koreans are respectful and intrinsically conformist: commuters line up on the right side of escalators to keep the fast lane open; TV sportscasters bow to each other when their program ends; spectators pick up their own trash when exiting the big top. Courtesy is a collective mentality.

The same sense of civility is true on the road. Not only is traffic tidy, it’s also strikingly affluent with its bevy of luxury cars – gleaming sedans with tinted windows, chromed wheels and winged hood ornaments. There’s nary a clunker in sight. By the look of it, you can tell the economy has been pumping on all cylinders lately.

Is that it then? Is this what’s peculiar? Is it the sheer number of Lexus, Mercedes, Audis, Porches and, of course, those high-end Equus - Hyundai's posh combination of limousine

and sports car?

Is that it then?

Uhhhhhm, no…

Lessee, what’s different, what’s odd with this picture?

And then, Bam!… It hits you. Like one of those pixelated eye-quizzes that slowly reveals what is perfectly obvious:

There are no colored cars!                                       

​Just about every vehicle on the road - save for the ubiquitous orange taxis - is black or white or a shade of grey.

Oh, there may be the occasional beige car, or an audacious dark blue, and every once in a while, outrageously, a maroon in the lot…

But they stand out like the lumps of coal in a snow drift.

I did a little background check.

In Korea, status and social conformity is paramount, and colored cars, it turns out, are seen as flippant and frivolous.

Henry Ford would have loved this.

Hyundai, which accounts for nearly three quarters of all car sales in South Korean, said the three shades make up 98.8 percent of its full-sized sedans sold in the first nine months of this year.

The company’s chairman was quoted as saying: "My personal theory is that, in the premium segment, it's about prestige, and when you have a black or silver car, it looks prestigious."

And in this land of reverence and abiding trends, when a social perception takes hold, it’s like an edict from the Emperor.

Koreans have much to be thankful for – riding a wave of prosperity and an enviable standard of living nearly unrivaled in the Far East.Seoul is a slick and modish capital with gleaming towers and ancient temples; a place of youthful energy and innumerable coffee shops; fashionable women tote Chanel handbags and dapper businessmen strut in finely pressed suits.  Things run hyper-efficiently, crime is quasi inexistent, commerce is thriving.

And yet…

Yet.

I’ve only been here for one month, and can’t pretend being an authority on modern Korean society - but something sure seems amiss.

For all the virtues, there seems to be a palpable sense of repetition, of numbing conformity, as if decency is programmed, clean but flat and laced with that inscrutable Asian righteousness, a sort of success bereft of warmth and somewhat monochromatic - like the cars.

~

Coming soon – a new Seoul photo gallery on this website.

Click here to view previous collections.

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Gooooaaaaaallllllllll!!!

TEFE, Brazil

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ANCIENT CEMETARY of MINYA, Egypt

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BOGOTA, Colombia

As is customary at the end of a trip to an impoverished part of the world, my thoughts turn to my parents, and my eternal gratitude for having emigrated from Egypt in 1966. My parents’ risky move gave us a chance for a better life, for prosperity, education and human rights.

I adored visiting Vietnam and Cambodia, exotic and intoxicating nations, historical and cultural landmarks, but also distressed and corrupt, nations struggling to recover from tragic pasts. And I am once again reminded of my own good fortunes, and how not to take them for granted. Because there, for the love of Buddha, could have gone I.

Despite threads of melancholy in my writings, it was a trip filled with wonder, both sublime and ridiculous. How these people have such easy smiles defies their meager means. How there aren’t a thousand crashes at each of Saigon’s busy intersections defies logic.

Angkor Wat artist

So many elusive memories over three short weeks.

I chatted with a group of young monks inside Buddha school in Phnom Penh for a half hour – just walked in off the street and climbed a set of stairs to a classroom…. I had a haircut in Siem Reap in one of several shops soon to be added to my Barbers photo gallery… I had 50-cent dinners and 4-dollar cups of coffee, obviously not at the same place. I hung out with a young painter in Wat Prohm (near Angkor) and bought one his watercolor artwork… I treated myself to one cheap massage, but couldn't fathom getting a Happy Ending from a pitiable young girl… I walked in the footsteps of my all-time hero, English writer Graham Greene, whose classic A Quiet American was set partly at 151 rue Catinat (now called Dong Koi) in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). That very arcade now features art shops and a tasteful café called L’Usine… I handed out small bills like tissues at a funeral, and gave kids hologram 3-D stickers of African animals bought at the 99-cent store in Vegas… I got my legs splashed by fish so fresh at the locals market, they were still writhing in a shallow basin of water… I rode passenger at the back of a motorbike "taxi" with my heavy backpack through the dizzying Saigon traffic and for all the gold in the world, I wish I had a GoPro camera on my useless plastic helmet - terrifying and terrific all at once… I found Wifi everywhere and veggie offerings hardly anywhere, thus packing on an 10 extra pounds through a diet of rice, noodles, pasta, crackers and bread… Too Fast Too Furious blared on the TV monitor at the front of the bus as we bounced along a rural Cambodian road, swerving to avoid cattle, deep ruts and sputtering tractors from the 1950s… I bumped hard into an ancient column walking dazedly around the Angkor Wat ruins, and exclaimed "Now, who put that there?!" (but none of the Chinese tourists found this hilarious)… I bought small inexpensive souvenirs galore, not so much from the need to have as from the goal to give… Why then, at times, did I haggle over a huge amount of 15,000 dong when in the end, it amounted to 75 cents?... I was bedazzled by the sweetest 7-year-old in Cambodia who sold postcards and could recite 1 to 10 in ten languages – switched the camera into video mode in time to capture the last 5… On a Saigon city bus (yes, I hopped on those to mingle with locals) I sat next to an old man, maybe 80, who's eyesight was failing, but spirit still robust. He railed to me, in Vietnamese, with relentless passion. "He complains about the communists," the girl behind us explained, in French. She had just come back from studies in Paris and noticed my Cirque t-shirt. Got that on video too… I loved my new gear – the tidy Olympus OMD5, the Lowe Pro messenger bag and the mini iPad… all small and subdued and exceptional travel companions.

A delightful trip, yes - but one of conflicting emotions. One moment supremely awed, the next wholly disgusted. I couldn’t get the Cambodian tragedy of Pol Pot out of my head. Two million people wiped out, the quarter of the population. Just 40 some year ago. “My uncle he die from no eat,” the painter at Wat Prohm told me, a line that I wrote in dread and earnest. Vietnam too can have wrenching poverty, but there’s entrenched desperation in the Cambodia. And a more vile government, not coincidentally. Beggars, amputees, child labor, sex tourism, relentless flogging, peddling, pleading… Hardship comes at you in many ways, and if the heart doesn’t break it does not beat. That's the price of traveling in the real world. We go see not only for pleasure, but also to know, to become aware. To be of the world. To appreciate what matters.

Soon, I’ll be back home, mending my garden, watching hockey on television, polishing my motorcycle, complaining about my job, living the privileged life and trying not to feel guilty about all the disparity.

(Jan 23)

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Photo gallery of Vietnam and Cambodia coming soon...

Saigon

me at 24

A jolly stickman, rather fit, bearded and bushy.  It's one of my most prized possessions.

I was in paradise, with coconut palm trees, smiling sunshine, a bottle of Mekhong in one hand, a volleyball in the other.

Oh, Lordy, how we loved our daily volleyball games.

Koh Samui is an island off Thailand. 

Back in 1983, it was reachable only by ferry boat, a rusting bucket of a ship spewing diesel fumes over a slippery deck of passengers and cargo alike.

The ferry pushed off the coastal town of Surat Thani thrice a week, on a 6-hour voyage across choppy waters that made the South China Sea look like captain Ahab's ocean of lore.

It was fabulous - a fine way to separate the travelers from the tourists.

Samui (Koh means island) was the heralded mid-point destination for hardy backpackers doing the South-East Asia trail, from up high in the jungles of Chiang Mai, to down low to the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, and onto Singapore, Indonesia, and onward to Australia, if the time permitted.

And time is what we had plenty in supply.

It was a well-beaten road, most young travelers toting Tony Wheeler's original Lonely Planet guidebook – the legendary, yellow-covered South-East Asia on a Shoestring.

Koh Samui had white sandy beaches, fine like Turkish coffee. Family-owned "bungalows" dotted the coastline, rudimentary and sometimes ramshackle huts with frond roofs and bamboo walls.

The “villages” had names like Joy Bungalows, Liberty Bungalows, Moon Bungalows and Big Buddha Bungalows. Each ran about a dozen huts, none with electricity nor running water. I stayed at Sunshine Bungalows, with a startlingly beautiful view of the bay.

Granted, they all did.

KO SAMUI

The main house up the hill served as the owner's domicile, restaurant, lavatory and communal hangout. We'd while away the days by lounging, reading each other’s novels, writing long letters of self-discovery or short postcards we couldn’t yet send. We played with pet monkeys and hiked the leafy forest on the other side of the main road. We lived in idyll.

We made fast friends from all parts of the world, sharing remarkable stories of adventure and distress. There was Dolf from Denmark, Toby from Vancouver, John and Hanna from Tasmania.

I went by "Tom", to keep things simple.

Local Thai women in sarongs would stroll by each day on the beach, selling rambutan, lychee, coconut milk and trinkets.

We ate like fiends, acquiring exotic tastes that still linger with nostalgia on my tongue’s memory buds.

By mid-afternoon, we'd be freshly roasted, both by the blazing sun and the ganja cookies so dutifully prepared up the hill, and on the menu.

Then came the ritual of volleyball, as the day cooled and players from all surrounding bungalows gathered around the net.

me at 24

The games were ridiculously competitive, and fun beyond reason – an exclamation point to the splendor of each day.

It was hilarious, like being intentionally stranded on fantasy island, no worries, no fears, no connection to the outside world.

Or, at least, not much.

Tragic news did somehow drift our way about a Korean jet shot down by the Soviets over the Sakhalin Islands. I couldn’t forget the airline number if I tried: KAL007.  Hearing about this, 2 weeks after it actually happened, standing in salty surf running through my toes, looking beyond the horizon, the world was distant, surreal.  

We were detached, like Lords of the Flies without the ambition. A nation of ephemeral travelers sharing a bubble of time.

The volleyball games ended with just rewards. We plunged into the luxuriant sea, washing our sweaty, sticky bodies and refreshing ourselves for lovely evenings of eating, sitting by bonfires and reading by candlelight.

Times have changed. Koh Samui now has an airport, big-chain hotels, newspaper delivery and crime. 

It's a popular getaway destination for weekend merrymakers, I think there may even be a Club Med where once stood tin shacks.

KO SAMUI

I've never gone back. I don't imagine I could.

I spent one month on Koh Samui exactly 30 years ago.

And, somehow, I don't think I ever left.

Sept 26, 2013

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A boy, maybe 9, sat by a window overlooking the tarmac in the departure lounge at the Gerard R Ford Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He looked forlorn. A young man, maybe his father, sidled up next to him and gave him a big hug. They wore khaki clothes, the boy's camouflage cap matching the man's t-shirt.
In the background, CNN aired more Boston Bombing specials. The despicable acts. The senseless violence. The inhumanity.
The man says to the boy: "Maybe, one day, we can go to Africa... and shoot Elephants!"
The boy looks up and beams, as though hearing there'd be marshmallows at the campfire.
A relative seated nearby pipes up: "Hey, you can't shoot elephants."
The man scoffs back: "Sure you can; you can shoot anything in the African jungle."
He then turns back to the kid, still excited, and says: "Or maybe shoot hippopotamuses, or do you say hippopotami? Whatever, they're nasty animals!"
Ah, America.

Three photographs of Gamal Abdel Nasser hang at the entrance of a small pharmacy, one block off Tahrir Square. Like the shop itself, they are dusty and unchanged in some 50 years. Nasser, the general who led the 1952 coup that overturned King Faruk’s monarchy, is a national hero - a symbol of Egyptian pride and self-determination. He nationalized industry, broke the yoke of colonialism, and gave pride and identity to a new republic. To my father, for one, he embodied the reason to leave the country. “Do you know who that is?” asked the young man behind the counter as I snapped a picture of the photographs. “Most foreigners don’t.” I feigned surprise for a moment. But with a single word in my mother’s tongue, I revealed my Egyptian roots. “Tabhan,” I said. Of course. The young pharmacist smiled back knowingly. We were instant brothers. “My parents were fond of him,” said Sarek, who now runs the shop after his father retired. “Nasser was a strong man. He meant well. Most of the world doesn’t see him that way; he was not always clean. But compared to who we have today…” He let his sentence trail off into an awkward pause. It’s not advisable to criticize the government in open public – particularly its president. So I went for it: “You mean the Mubarak regime?” I asked. Sarek sized me up and said, “These men in power today, they are not good. We the Egyptians, we don’t deserve this shabby life.” Shabby. The word was perfect.

'nasser frames' • cairo, egypt

This was December 2, 2010. It was my second visit to my native land since immigrated to Canada in 1965 at the age of 6. I was born into a middle-class Christian family; my father wore a suit and tie to work as a manager of a suburban movie house. My mother wore fashionable Rita Hayworth dresses and dabbled in local theatre. We had a Nubian nanny and often went swimming at a private club up the street from our apartment. Life was good. By the middle of the last century, downtown Cairo had been built with elegance and splendor, its architecture rivaling any European capital in style and grandeur. Old timers still call them the “beautiful years,” an era of pride and panache. Of course, not all classes of society shared this viewpoint. Privilege belonged to the few, and the masses itched for reforms. With Nasser’s overthrow of the monarchy came changes. Nasser may have been a heavy-handed bully, pushing for land reforms and expropriation of industry. But his regime promised to benefit the swelling populace, and was welcomed with optimism and support. But Egypt’s first modern-day revolution was destined to fail. Year by year, the principles of fairness eroded, giving way to the usual scars of a military dictatorship: corruption, autocracy, repression. A large swath of country’s intelligentsia left (or fled) in the decades that followed, taking with them not so much wealth as knowhow. The Egyptian diaspora in such places as Australia, Brazil, the United States and Canada abounds with engineers, doctors, scholars and entrepreneurs – a brain drain that stunted Egypt for at least two generations. For many Christians, it was a growing sense of religious discrimination that prompted a desire to leave. My mother recalls waiting in line to buy vegetables at the market, and when her turn would come, the Moslem vendor would ignore her – a petty slap in an ingrained grudge. The Moslem masses had grown weary and defiant; the pendulum had swung. And although the new regime remained secular on paper, Islamic power was on the rise “We emigrated to give you and your sister a better life,” my parents reminded me. “What you will see today, it’s not the Cairo we knew.”

'tahrir square' • cairo, egypt

Their words of caution rang in my ears during my first visit, back in 1994. I understood immediately. Cairo is a crush of humanity. There were some 3 million inhabitants in my parents’ days – there are now nearly 20 million. It’s a beehive of activity, a cacophony of sounds, a dizzying array of sights and smells. The bustle verges on apocalyptic – no traffic lights to speak of, a mad frenzy of bumper-cars squeezing into every nook and cranny of pavement. And yet, nary a fender-bender – it’s as though everyone is accustomed to the mayhem. Egyptians are accustomed to dealing with frustration with the patience of Job. That’s what struck me 17 years ago. There was a sense of humor in the air, a kind of quiet acceptance that underlined the sweet nature of the people. Egyptians are, by and large, exquisite in their hospitality, convivial, charming; a theatrical lot who enjoy whimsical turns of phrase and a good joke. This is true whether in the old medieval quarters of the city, or in the luxurious upscale neighborhoods, whether in traditional galabeya or Western wear, they carry on with steady poise and cleverness that defies the daily grind. They make do. Visitors to the capital suffer mainly from the sensory paradox of being utterly flummoxed one moment, to being wholly seduced the next. That, besides being the cradle of civilization, is what makes Egypt great: its people. And it’s in their eyes that I noticed the marked change when I returned last December. Gone was the glint, replaced by fatigue, anger and disgust. The city itself had aged badly in such short a time. Black soot on the gorgeous buildings had caked thicker; facades were in shameful disrepair, sidewalks were broken, parks were crumbling, traffic went from heavy to infernal, litter blew and garbage reeked and an alarming sense of indifference seemed to have taken hold.

'pretty in pink' • cairo, egypt

I befriended a 60-something man in front of his dry-cleaning shop. He had returned home to Egypt a few months back from Kuwait, to be close to his grown children. To his regret, they hadn’t wanted to leave with him. I shared my personal story with him, and lamented I had nearly lost all my Egyptian growing up in Canada. “Good!” he chided at me. “You’re better off there. And if you ever come back here, I’ll strangle you myself!” He was sharing his sorrow in typical dramatic flair. “This country is ruined,” he said, kicking a discarded plastic bottle into the gutter. “It will never be fixed.” Signs of such despair were many. Playfulness was replaced by grumble. There was an undertow of irritation that I sensed, but could not imagine the extent. Deference to authority, and to the police in particular, colors the social fabric. I wasn’t surprised to be scolded with yells of Mamnouh! (Forbidden!) by officers for pointing my camera at seemingly innocuous subjects: statues, churches, university grounds, museums, the Metro entrance… The Police have always liked to flex its muscle in public. What surprised me was how jumpy they appeared; that, and how fed up the populace had become, and how the simmer felt like it was coming to a boil. Or was that merely my wishful impression in hindsight? The events that began last January 25 were nothing short of exhilarating. And the uprising that swelled the eyes of the world was nothing short of mesmerizing.

'watchers' • cairo, egyp

Nasser perhaps meant well at the start of this sorry saga; Sadat may have done better had assassination not stopped him; but Mubarak, now there was a soldier who mistook himself for a Pharaoh. Like typical tyrants, his dyed-hair portraits watch over the country not from devotion but from megalomania. When the world thinks of Egypt, it thinks mainly of the Great Pyramids and scenic Nile cruises – not a totalitarian police state where free speech is banned, human rights are trampled and corruption runs rampant. But beneath the tourist brochures, that’s exactly what it was. Surely, there are geopolitical reasons why this scourge flourished, why it was allowed to thrive. Mine is not to elaborate on that here. Certainly, the earlier overthrow in Tunisia emboldened the Egyptians. The alarming price of food flamed the anger. And the social media of Facebook and Twitter allowed unprecedented connection, even planning. The uprising on January 25 had been scheduled for weeks. But above all, the spontaneous solidarity that ensued stemmed from a visceral need for decency. This revolution was organic not dogmatic, secular not clerical, born out of the need for dignity, not ideology. There were no American flags burning at the centre of Tahrir Square. Long coerced into quiet acceptance through force, lies and fear, Egyptians had had enough. I was never more proud of my motherland. It was as though Egyptians snapped out of their collective stupor, seeing that true change – unimaginable for so long – was indeed possible. Liberty can be infectious when an entire nation catches the bug, uniting the rich and poor, Moslems and Christians, young and old to stand side by side in the name of justice. Such a great heritage deserves no less. And that’s not so shabby, after all.

'our daily bread' • cairo, egypt

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