Scratch that Itch

Live hip hop concerts are rarely as good in practice as they are in theory.  Doesn't mean I won't keep trying.  Tonight I have the grand pleasure of seeing my favorite Jukebox Jockey's open for an icon at the Poolbar in Feldkirch:  Grandmaster Flash.

Endless Horizons: Part III – South Gobi, Mongolia

Ok.  I’ve put this off long enough.  It’s time to share some thoughts about my days in Mongolia before the memories fade and those days dissolve into the tapestry of stories and experience that lies half in the world we are all living in and half in my imagination (a world I rarely leave).

Gift for Buddah

I had no expectations for this leg of the journey except for distance.  I wanted to feel far, far away.  I wanted to be so far away, in fact, that from that distance I could see my own trajectory into the future…I wanted to see where my path is leading, my personal horizon and glean a clue about what’s next for Beana.  Mongolia can definitely deliver on ‘the middle of nowhere’ vibe that I am describing.  Tucked between Russia, China and Kazakhstan I was as remote as I have ever been.  It was perfect.  In a land with endless horizon I got a glimpse of my own.

Arriving by train gave me some time to prepare but, if I’m honest, it would be hard for anybody to be prepared for Ulaanbaatar.  A huge pothole trimmed with ger camp suburbs and a less-than-graceful attempt at civil engineering, you can almost feel the city growing as you stand in it.  The traffic is perpetually at ‘Midtown Manhattan rush hour’ levels with less grid and more chaos.  I had 3 nights in UB all together and, though I saw many parts of the city, I didn’t have time to do the solo wandering that always connects me to my destination.  The Soviet influence is clear and that stark, boxy aesthetic creates an odd texture when paired with the organic looking gers scattered throughout the city.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

None of the ’sights’ in UB feel even remotely touristy.  Everything is so chill and relaxed that you can stumble into an amazing Temple Museum and not even realize it.  In China every facade was restored to a Disney-like-perfection where it was sometimes hard to imagine the monument or place being lived in.  In Mongolia it was far different.  Lived in is how the whole country felt…you can feel the life happening there, the pulse.  An absolute favorite day for me in UB was visiting the Ghandan Khiid Monastery.  This place is a living, breathing Buddhist temple where tourists are allowed entry to every single building there.  Monks out number visitors significantly so this is not a bad arrangement.  It was absolutely transcendental…one of the most beautiful and amazing things I have ever seen.  Drums and chanting and bells and prayer wheels with the smell of milktea hanging in the air, it was like time traveling.  Photos weren’t welcome here but I was allowed to make a couple…

Young Monks - Ghaandin Khiid Monastery

Aside from some sightseeing in UB, my only agenda was to score some boots that would let me ride like the wind when it came time for some horse trekking.  I got an A+ on this assignment and wait for Fall now so I can wear them every day.  A domestic flight carried me from Ulaanbaatar south to a ‘city’ called Dalanzgdad, or DZ.  I remember thinking that the runway at Ghengis Khaan Airport is the only stretch of pavement anywhere in UB without potholes.  Flying over the Gobi was as surreal as training through it but stepping outside the airport and seeing a battalion of 4 wheel drive vehicles brought me back to reality right quick.  Tuya and Nassa were my guides there, a young married couple, and it was clear I was in the right hands when the first words out of Tuya’s mouth after ‘welcome’ were, “welcome to south gobi, one of the most beautiful places in the world.  i love my country.’  After a short stop for gas we drove out into the steppe.  The sensation of leaving pavement and driving through wide open spaces is hard to describe.  Total freedom.  Unplugged.

Road Less Traveled - South Gobi

Thinking about 21st century nomads is something different than spending time with them.  Where there is water, there is life so the movement and routine of the herds people is far from random.  There is logic to the movement and safety in the routine and after water, shelter, community and food are the only other necessities.  And vodka, I suppose.  I can tell you that all the static electricity that is our Western social construct fades away when you see how life on Earth – one of the harshest places on Earth – is lived day to day.  Its humbling to see their strength and generosity and humor and it reinforces a notion that I think often – less is more.  Ankle bone horse racing, singing to one another, watching baby animals clumsily get acquainted with the world and taking joy in tending the herd and making the dairy is a rich and beautiful existence.  Many younger generations are tempted to leave these old ways and make a modern life in the city which is very sad to see…an entire culture going extinct.  What gives me hope is that even those trying for a new life in UB bring their children to their parents and aunts and uncles in the ‘countryside’ so most children there learn the ways of their families and honor their roots, if only for summers.

21st Centruy Nomads

Help for the Summer

I could write a book about how South Gobi impacted me but I am going to try to focus here.  There were 3 major sites that I visited:  Khongoryn Els or ‘the singing dunes,’ Yolyn Alm or ‘Eagle Gorge,’ and Banyzang or ‘the Flaming Cliffs.’  The dunes spoke to me on a personal level and therefore that is the story I will share now but I believe that it was seeing all three of them, the diversity of the Gobi, that made the experience so fantastic.  A little like in Las Vegas, the scale of everything in Gobi is a bit disorienting.  Things appear to be nearby that are actually 50km away so it is no surprise that I underestimated my ability to quickly summit the highest point for sunset.  The sand is so soft so for every 2 steps you take forward you slide back 3.  Imagine climbing a tidal wave and you can begin to fathom this experience.  With each handful of sand you push down in your effort to go up, you can feel – literally tons! – of sand moving beneath you.  As the sand slides over itself it makes a low, groaning and sweeping sound that is the song referred to when talking about the ’singing dunes.’  It’s impossible not to look down as you claw your way up so in addition to being physically grueling, it is also vertigo-inducing.  Not everybody could make it even halfway up and, with about 18 kilos of camera on my back, I was determined not to be among that group.  After 1 1/2 hour of OCD, Rainman-like counting….25 steps up, breath for 50…25 steps up, breath for 50…I made it to the top of the Gobi. 

Top of the Gobi

It was just Tuya, Nassa and I and they left me after an hour or so to have the sunset to myself.  I had the sublime pleasure of standing alone on a windless night, the faint sound of the dunes and some baby camels calling for mama in my ears, watching a pink and orange fireball light the desert up before sinking below the horizon and washing everything in lilac.  I can think of a handful of moments in my life when I have been in *exactly* the right place at the right time and this was one of them.  The same way the sun lit up the steppes and mountains and dunes, it lit me up to.  Life-altering and life-affirming travel, indeed.  The light that shone on me that night remains glowing and the clarity and vision that it revealed are making wheels turn as we speak.  The middle of nowhere was the center of me.

Singing Dunes

Khongryn Els

It is poetic and perfectly perfect that after this sublime moment alone with God that I hopped on a sled and let my adrenalin pump as I sped down the way I climbed up.  Its like enlightenment and rock and roll all at the same time…the kind of life I like living.   4 more days of traversing the desert allowed me to experience life in a ger, sample the vast and interesting assortment of dairy products made by the herds people, gallop across dunes on a camel named Huchbar, slide across a Gobi glacier and score a fossilized dinosaur egg at the Flaming Cliffs.  I was sad to say goodbye to Tuya and Nassa and their epic and awesome land but I feel like a piece of it came home with me.

Camel Herder & Baby Duck

Click here for a slideshow of my days in South Gobi.

Expect the Unexpected: Part II – Trans-Mongolian Railway

Train travel has always awoken something romantic in me.  Watching the world slide by, feeling time slow down, falling asleep to the rhythmic rocking, allowing your soul to arrive at your destination at the same time as your body…  I think I’ve waxed poetic here before about riding the rails but I’m going to again.  The Trans-Siberian Railroad is a big one.  Trans-Mongolian, in my case, but believe me when I tell you that I have every intention of finishing that ride some day.  9 days stomping around Beijing was perfect but, by the time it was over, I was ready to relax in my cabin and just be still.  I think that’s part of my love of trains…you can be perfectly still and still be moving.

Somewhere in Inner Mongolia - Trans-Siberian Railroad

Everything I read about this train underlined the necessity to expect the unexpected.  Each recount and guidebook told a variation of a similar and yet totally different story.  From the first moment we boarded it was confusing as all hell.  Brilliant and comfortable and surreal and exciting and totally confusing.  The “hostesses,” more Jeckyl and Hyde than anything else, speak neither Chinese nor English so our guide wasn’t able to explain why, upon boarding, they take your ticket and disappear.  This would not be the last time they would take something and disappear…

Fast Track in the Slow Lane - TSR

I feel like I could write a short novel on this train ride but I will refrain…at least for now anyways.  35 hours heading out of Beijing, through Inner Mongolia and the Gobi Desert is a trip.  Waking up to a petal pink sky and horses running alongside the wind is so wild and beautiful that its hard to digest.  Moments like this were balanced by hectic and confusing border crossings, seldom opportunities to find snacks to forage and some very funny commentary from the couple in the cabin next door.

Border - China & Mongolia

I still giggle when I think back to the Mongolian border guards searching cabins and checking passports in the middle of the night and our Turkish friend grumbling, “This is horrible!”  At that moment, it kind of was but it was far funnier than bad.  Quite an adventure.

1st Taste of the Gobi

The bad part of not having recapped this while it was happening is that now you are getting jipped.  I’m struggling a little with writing this all down and, in the process, delaying updates on the new news…perhaps if I ask nicely enough I cankindly request 36 hours in tomorrows day instead of just 24.  Stay tuned for a stream of consciousness rememberance of Mongolia…

Buddah is my copilot

If you’d like to see some more photos from the train, click here.

The Music of Movement: Part 1 – Beijing & Mutianyu

In bed, listening to tunes and curled around my laptop like its a lover, I couldn’t fall asleep.  I wore myself out yesterday and should have been swimming in stars and the mist that was my dreams of yesterday, today and tomorrow but I was awake.  Wide awake. I feel like if I were sitting upright that  I would be on the edge of my seat…perched as though something certain is about to happen.  I’m pretty certain that the only thing I should expect is uncertainty, though, so I’m curious about what gives.  The endorphins from China and Mongolia did not dissipate upon my arrival home but, instead, channeled themselves right into the next adventure and I think it is this excitement that I am anticipating.  That said, I think it’s time to reflect on my past trip before I depart on the next one…

The whole holiday was a movement of music.  The rhythm and cadence of my movements was well choreographed and the itinerary was well-designed to carry me through.  A brief stop in Cairo could be equivalent to that moment before the concert when the lights go out and the audience wonders whats about to happen.  It was a clear departure from my current reality and an indicator that, like in the theater, it was time to suspend my disbelief and just let go.  A comedy of errors, between 2 broken buses, a ridiculous pig flu quarantine and over-friendly Air Egypt flight attendants, I was just happy to find my gate and some tea.  Prayers and chanting from a mosque echoed out into the terminal where I was sitting and they must have been heard because Allah carried us safely to Peking.

im out

5 days and nights alone in Beijing to feel myself away, shake off work and have some real quality time with the city was a perfect beginning.  I slipped slowly and sublimely into a groove that felt oddly like Orchard Street.  Same smells as the funny markets near my house, I felt closer to ‘home’ than I have in a while.  The melody began to take shape as I wandered all of Beijing – baseline of foot steps, the creaky rattle of the rickshaw, the echos and bells of the subway, the deafening squeak of the buses breaks, the spinning prayer wheels at the Llama Temple and the bi-lingual and ineffective conversation with the taxi drivers.

Rickshaw Driver - Beijing, China

Around the time that I was in sync with myself it was time to meet my guide and travel companion and begin a more structured exploration of the city.  At this point we got more ’serious’ about making sure that the history – the vast and long history – of the city was explored.  Between my days alone and with Tom, I saw : Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace, Forbidden City,  Temple of Heaven, Drum & Bell Towers, Panjiayuan Market, Silk Street, Longtan Park, Beihai Lake, the 798 Art District, the Birds Nest & Watercube, Monument to the Peoples Heros, Llama Temple, Dongyue Temple, Qianhai Lake, Donganmen Dajie and the night market, Ritan Park, a Peking Opera, some Kung Fu and countles hutongs throughout the city. To go through all of this would be a comprehensive travel guide and that is not on the agenda but feel free to ask me if you have any particular questions about these places or Beijing in general.

Summer Palace - Beijing, China

Hutong - Beijing, China

Restoration - Llama Temple - Beijing, China

Zhaoheng Gate - Temple of Heaven Park - Beijing, China

What I can say is that I was both saddened and inspired by what I saw.  The city is in flux, recovering from the INSANE growth spurt that was the Olympic games.  Tearing  down and building up, the air is always thick with brick dust and something that feels like a cross between hope and capitalism.  The locals that I connected with offered great insight on how that growth has dramatically changed their lives for the better – mainly in the form of mass transit, renovated monuments and public service announcements about enjoying themselves – and it was a unique perspective.  I still can’t put words to it but I also sensed a profound contradiction there.  Walls protecting more walls protecting courtyards with nothing in them maintained a symmetrical sense of power and control and ‘beauty’ but in a totally superficial way.  Meditation and self control focus on inner strength and substance yet there appears to be some ‘muscle’ or layer missing that connects this ’supreme’ facade with this inner power.  I got the sense that things were either all or nothing and can’t really explain it better than that.  What I can say is that the Emperor was surely a very lonely guy and China is a country in the midst of a fast and all-consuming transition.

Duan Gate - Forbidden City - Beijing, China

Offerings - Dongyue Temple - Beijing, China

Majong

Private Home - Hutong

A day before departing we headed about 2 hours north of the city to Mutianyu to see the Great Wall.  A ride up in the cable car that carried Slick Willy some years ago was funny and, from what I was told, an honor.  The throngs of tourists make this a difficult experience to absorb but that was true with a lot of what I visited in China.  Regardless, its a sight to behold.

Mutianyu - Great Wall of China

Mutianyu - Great Wall of China

"Be Loyal to Chairman Mao"

This search for meaning and understanding stayed with me the entire time I traveled in China and I look forward to seeing more of the country and discovering more.  Some high points for me in the city were the 798 Art District, Tiananmen Square, Ritan Park at 8am, buying electronics, eating any variety of fascinating (and sometimes tongue curling) street food, watching karaoke in Longtan Park, $8 full body massages (i think i had 4), a glimpse inside a private courtyard and, naturally, some quality time with the Great Wall.

798 Art District - Beijing, China

Peking Opera

Watch out for the stinky tofu - street food - Beijing, China

Ritan Park - Early Morning

Rainy Day - Summer Palace

You can get a better sense of what I saw by taking a pass through the images from Cairo, Beijing and Mutianyu right here.  For those of you particularly interested in Beijing’s art scene, click here for a focused album on the 798 District.  By the end of 9 days I had a handle on the town and was ready to shift gears and depart, across the Gobi to Mongolia.  Stay tuned for a recap about how the music changed on the leg from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.  Paul Simon was right, ‘everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance.  everybody thinks its cool.’

Special Plums - yum!!

A Sip from the Ocean

The ocean of energy that was sloshing around inside my skin seemed to get concentrated while in the East.  The re-entry into daily life had some kind of ‘focusing’ effect and the results of this are still revealing themselves.  There is A LOT of stuff happening right now. Even on fronts that I didn’t realize were fronts I am experiencing activity, decisions, opportunities and other kinds of choices too.

I am not overwhelmed (yet) by any of these prospects but it is thier convergence that has occupied me completely and kept me from doing a more ‘proper’ recap of the trip.  Most of the topics on the table are things that I’m not gonna talk about here but I can give you a sip…

An interesting publication here in Innsbruck has commissioned me to photograph thier 2010 calendar.  The theme is both interesting and relevant and the task is 12 black and white images.  The press conference that will launch this annual publication will also house an exhibit of the original photographs.  This will mark my second solo show in Austria.  It is beautiful that the theme is so interesting and thought-provoking and strangely connected to much of what I was thinking about while in Mongolia.   I am excited to see what I make.

As for the other biggies, we’re all just going to have to be patient and let the games continue before I can tell you who won and what they won.

What goes up...gets to sled down!

Beana Bern on Chocodog

always brings me joy to participate in any little way with the best band in the world…how about clicking here and celebrating a sweet collaboration by buying some Ween merch!!

The Real World

I’ve been back from holiday for a week now and more than 8 people have said to me, “welcome back to the real world!”  I know that the intention is good and this is a an acknowledgement that I was in another kind of reality for the last month but these words have been echoing in my head since thier first utterance.  The real world?  Is that where my life is located?  What does that say for the billions – yes, billions – of people located all over the Earth that have a reality different than mine?  A world where water is still the primary concern followed shortly by shelter, food and community?  Is that not the real world?  I would make the argument that this holiday I had, this vacation, was into the real world and not the opposite.

Getting Water

Only 5 days into my normal routine and I can’t shake the fact that everything I’m doing is somehow floating above the surface, mired in an ocean of static and electricity, the tasks are like turning the gears of a clock in a world with no time.  I am making and writing and shifting and doing all with the purpose of being able to do the same thing tomorrow.  Like the Doozer’s living in Fraggle Rock, I am building things simply for the sake of building them.  Need is irrelevant.  Good design is optional.  Cooperation is a luxury.  The Western way, the capitalist way, isn’t as concerned with the output as the money made from the output and I can’t understand why I have always been okay with this relationship.  I haven’t just been okay with it but have educated myself to maximize it and, with it, my own personal benefits.   

Skin - All They Have To Sell

I refer to myself as Sisyphus all the time, the 21st century variety, and that is true but if I recall the story correctly Sisyphus was in hell.  I am not.  Or at least, I would like to choose an alternative.  It took a journey to the East to gain some perspective on the West and now I am grappling with that new view.  Don’t get me wrong, I like comfort and am deeply grateful for the gifts and luck I have had that allows me to live the life I am living but I am seeing something else now…life with purpose, concern for the output rather than the money made from it and comfort are not mutually exclusive.  It is possible to take the same skills and same passions I use for perpetuating the daily grind to turn the gears of a different machine…one that impacts the ‘real world’ in a ‘real way.’

Sisters - UB Girls in the Country

Since my return I have been combing through my images, watching zillions of TED presentations, looking in the mirror and asking myself some very clear questions.  I am full to the brim, overflowing in fact, with inspiration and I am considering carefully where to direct this new passion and energy so as to help reconnect me with the ‘real world’ and also maintain the flexible freedom that I have worked hard to achieve.  A garden would be a simple beginning – reconnecting literally with where my food comes from – while the opposite end of the specturm would be dropping everything and heading to Africa to dig wells.  As you can see, it is a big arc that I am mentally traversing and I am curious to see where on it I will land.

The honest truth is that I don’t know yet how, and how much, I want to change or how radical that change should be but I can say that the thought is pumping through me like my blood.   

3rd Day Horse Trek - Beana in Central Mongolia

The Tip of My Iceberg

It is totally overwhelming to pass through these images with the aim of choosing my favorites as each of them made it through many rounds of editing and are among those images I deemed necessary to both remember and convey my experience.  The 800 photos that reside in the albums are, however, more than most people have the time to comb through so I wanted to elevate the tip of the iceberg and make the whole (almost the whole) journey accessible.

Below you can get a taste of where I was, what I saw and who shared these experiences with me.  It is, by no means, the whole picture – 21% of it to be exact – but it is a good place to jump off from.  If you find yourself curious or inspired to see more, click here for complete albums on each leg of the journey.  My hot minute in Moscow seemed like a footnote compared to the bigness of Asia so it will appear when I have time to add it.

Perhaps what may be more satisfying would be to view this slideshow full screen, I recommend that, and you can click this link to make it so.

Getting Closer to Getting There

I’m not so much a ‘horse person’ as much as a ‘remote nature person.’  More transportation and less childlike obsession, I thought just under 5 days on horseback in Central Mongolia would be a perfect way to get off the beaten track and I was accurate.  It was spectacular and I am going to show you what it looked like and where I went.  Eventually.  Probably this weekend.

In addition to the memories, images and callouses I brought home, I have also acquired some crazy back pain.  I keep saying that I’m going to give it ‘one more day’ to sort itself out but I’m thinking today is the day to see what’s shaking (or, more accurately, what was shook).  Galloping across the open plains on a horse that has an invisible rocket up its ass looks like freedom buut I can tell you it feels like something else…

While I nurse my spine and continue to try and get back on the proverbial horse that is work, I will leave you with a favorite image of Ulaanbaatar’s Black Market.

Back Room, Black Market

As far as the ‘getting closer to getting closer,’ I will reveal to you my plan.  I am going to finish editing and uploading the images from Mongolia’s epic ‘countryside’ this weekend.  Once everything I wish to share is up I am going to accumulate a ‘best of’ album of the whole trip, basically my favorites…This going through, and going through and going through is the process by which I will distill the recap that will give you some insight into where I went and what it meant.

Getting to Getting There

“The hard part about mind-blowing experiences is that your mind cannot (and should not) revert back to its previous shape”

These wise words just arrived in a note from a friend and I was happy for something tangible to help explain why, though almost everything is the same, I feel different inside my skin.  ((Thank you, Matt))  Departure from routine and all things familiar has a way of expanding perspectives so it’s really no wonder that I am having trouble fitting myself inside myself.  Like the extra suitcase I bought at Ulaanbaatar’s State Department Store to help carry all the goodies I accumulated in my travels, I am now considering how to go about carrying this extra understanding gracefully.  Combing through only 10 days of images from Beijing and the train ride to Mongolia, I feel like I have been swept back to the beginning of a movement, the first notes of what will become a crescendo.  My trip was like a spiral with each leg of the journey taking me in a seemingly larger circle, encompassing more, and revealing more so that now I feel like I am crawling through a wormhole, squeezing through tight spaces, to bring myself back to the beginning.

Distance brings perspective so I figured that the further away I went, perhaps, the further I could see.  Coated with smog in Beijing and also standing alone in vast expanses of the Gobi Desert I found that, regardless of the actual visibility, that clarity inside me was crystal clear.  I’m far-sighted in actuality and it would seem as though the same is true metaphorically speaking.  Standing up close and personal now with everything I could see so clearly only a week ago, the edges are blurry as my eyes and mind refocus.  I feel like one of my camera lenses zooming in and out trying to find the focal point around which I can compose the picture.

Half of the journies photographs are already visible but I need a little more time to consider how I want to share the stories that accompany them in addition to the rest of the images…

I’m getting to the part where I get there.  In the meantime, I will hide behind my fan, get back to work and let the dust settle.

Back from Beyond

I arrived home this morning, early this morning, and am just now waking up to find that life has gone on without me.  My blackberry is full to overflowing and it is clear that when I return to work on Tuesday I will do so at a cantor or gallop…no walking or trotting will be permitted.

The first question everybody asks when you get home from holiday is, “so, how was it?”  A reasonable question to ask but still impossibly hard to answer in a casual way.  ‘Awesome’ and ‘epic’ top the list of one word answers that are both polite and accurate but they still seem inadequate.  I will have a lot more to say (and show) from my adventures but wanted, more than anything, to radio in as it were…

While I clean the sand out of my clothing, dust from my lenses, dung from my boots, mutton from my teeth, smoke from my hair and shake the dreams out of my mind I will leave you with one image to whet your palate.  Stay tuned for more…

Sunset from Khongoryn Els - South Gobi, Mogolia