LETTERS & POSTCARDS I

London To Islamabad



Introduction & Setting The Stage
From England To Turkey
Syria, Jordan, Egypt
Trials In Turkey
Pieces Of Pakistan







Introduction

The following pages are fragments of postcards and letters dated January to October 1994, from my first trip overseas. Rather than repetitiously type many of the same experiences, stories and ideas over and over (which were initially mailed to different people in a variety of countries), I have picked select passages and/or condensed the material to make more of a flowing 'story' out of it all.

In some places I have added words to provide better context (like when combining two text sources together); but for the most part I wanted to leave it alone. So if you come across a sentence, paragraph or an idea that isn't well written -- so what. That's the way I want it -- rough around the edges.



Setting The Stage

"For this is truth: I have left the house of the scholars and slammed the door behind me. Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table."

"(1) There is one truth, one reality, and it is our duty to find it. There is unity in disease, therefore there is unity in remedy. (2) Millions may fail to prove truth in their lives. That would be their failure, never of the eternal law. (3) Truth will present itself to all in time; and Justice will be rendered accordingly."



From England to Turkey

January 27, 1994
Postcard to Katharyn Phelps
Olympia, Greece

I'm sitting in my chilled hostel room, wondering where to go next. Olympia is where I am, and I'm thinking Kiparissia will be my next target. From there I start the real backpacking experience I've so much wanted to do. Walk through the southern half of Peloponnesse, along the shoreline, sleeping in the trees, and living on (more) bananas.


February 5, 1994
Postcard to Ron W
Kalamata, Greece

After a few months of 'toughening up' -- of mental and physical conditioning here in Greece -- I hope to enter Islam. But that is a long ways away. Each day and each city seems an eternity away from one another. PS: there is nothing funnier than waking up to a chorus of braying donkeys in the middle of the night!


February 15, 1994
Postcard to Ann & Glen W
Gythio, Greece

The more time that passes, the better it gets. What began as a lonely, confusing and generic postcard trip has developed into what I set out to do …


February 16, 1994
Postcard to Katharyn Phelps
Gythio, Greece

To enter Islam! How long I have waited to begin my study of the Islamic religion … and now I am just a few weeks away.


March 2, 1994
Letter to Denise W
Istanbul, Turkey

… The reason I didn't go directly to Athens (from London) was because the train and bus lines didn't have frequent direct services during their low season. Not wanting to hang around for a week in London -- and the expensive Western countries -- I began skipping my way east.

Amsterdam was my first stop -- so much for saying I wasn't going to Holland, huh? Stayed there for three nights, got robbed for 28 bucks the first day, but the rest of the time was decent enough I guess. It was about six in the morning when I left the train station and stepped into downtown. The first two guys I meet are junkies looking for some cash, and they offer me some hash in return. I refuse, they follow. Eventually the guy who was going through heroin withdrawal (so they said) grabs my glasses off my face and angrily screams off.

After a few minutes of trying to reason with the #@%* guy, I gave in, emptied my pockets, and got my glasses back. I am glad I divided my cash up between my money belt and my pockets before I stepped out of the train station. It also taught me an important lesson -- to not wear glasses and always keep attentive. Now half of my backpack feels like it is filled with newly purchased contact solution bottles!

I did a lot of walking in Amsterdam, took in a few museums, watched people roll dope on the tables in the hostel, but my heart just did not want to be there, so I left for Prague after three days. Got there on December 31, just in time for New Years.

How I got past Czech borders was lucky too. Canadians need to buy a $73 visa to gain entry. I said #&%&@ it and big time fluked out when the police didn't check the whole bus at the border. Once checked into a hotel-sort-of-hostel I met a German guy, Oliver, who I hung out with most of the time drinking beers and eating goulash (yum!).

The city was pretty, the prices extra cheap, the women gorgeous, the clubs fantastic -- but again, I felt empty -- wandering the world without a purpose. As Oliver stated "the older we get, the more disillusioned we get, so we drink." Well, I didn't want to be a part of that 'lostness' so I carried on further east into Budapest, Hungary.

Wow! I ended up staying there for thirteen days, and this place is cheap. Budapest was a little better. I had fun, met a handful of wild people (but again, through alcohol) in the hostel, but still felt intensely unfulfilled, like I wasn't accomplishing anything.

Got a few tips on the Middle East from Marc, a fellow French Canadian, who had been traveling for nine months. Other than that, saw a couple of operas (The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly), museums, churches, etc., etc. After the hostel group had parted ways and once I had exhausted the usual city sights I carried on.

Went to Venice from Budapest. I could have went though 'Yugoslavia' but when a country asks me for a visa I get pretty steamed and tend to bypass it altogether (though this attitude will soon change as I travel further east). Venice was cool. What a design for a city!

When I arrived there at about 11:00pm I decided to sleep in a market square, behind a wooden barricade I built for myself. Because there was no way I was going to pay 20 bucks for a hotel-hostel. It was when I did this that I saw my future and experienced the first bit of real satisfaction throughout the trip that far.

I only had one night and one day in Venice but I pounded the streets for a good 14 hours with my backpack. So going to Brindisi that night on the train I slept real good. So good, in fact, that I had to catch the train back to Brindisi because I slept through my stop.

Caught a 22 hour ferry from there to Patras, Greece, and stayed in a refrigerator hostel for five nights. Met this lady who was quite the comic, turned out she is the only American Buddhist nun under the Dali Lama. She is going around Europe collecting funds to build a monastery in Southern France for Tibetan Nuns. Between her and a South African girl -- who opened my eyes regarding South Africa -- the conversations were pretty cool.

After some thinking and being blue I decided to leave Patras and go to Olympia, home of where the Olympic games began so many thousands of years ago. Visited with Zeus and the ruins -- and made up my mind. I was going to go backpacking. It was in Venice I had my first taste of roughing it. It was in Kiparrissia that I got off the train (from Olympia), bought some food and a flashlight, and began walking rural Greece.

The first eight days I traveled 150 kilometers and made it to Kalamata via Pilos, Methoni and Koroni. I saw a lot of cool land, slept in some beautiful newly constructed but still uninhabited house frames (plus concrete platforms, even a cemetery) underneath the stars.

It's not that I saw anything fantastic -- for most of it was quite normal. Fields, houses, yapping dogs, old Greek farmers, a few crumbling castles -- but damn, it felt like I had stepped into paradise. For now all that my eyes saw, all that I did, I worked for.

Looking back on it now, I was possessed I think. But bouncing around this way and that way for so long, I can understand that when I found something worthwhile I gave it everything I had. And there was no way I was going to give up my new approach because of a little pain.

By the time I got to Kalamata I was tired. My feet were so badly bruised and blistered I could barely walk. Three days of rest in a hotel fixed me up a bit. But by the end of three days, the boredom of luxury set in and I needed the difficulty of the road to make me happy. Throughout this whole ordeal I had certain things I was trying to accomplish. It was not just another pursuit to keep my busy.

I wanted: (A) to strengthen my body and mind; (B) to ward off boredom and its multitude of stray paths. A back to basics program to help me strengthen my body and discipline my mind. I knew the cities would always spin me in circles, so I shoved myself into this agonizing routine which -- most remarkably -- worked! Though it seriously weakened my body, I have become more focused -- concentrating on what I came over here to do -- research and define our existence, i.e., study the different philosophies and religions of the world.

From Kalamata I pushed forward seven more days through Areopoli and Vathia, covering 200 kilometers, with some very nice mountain scenery, beaches, and harbors. That took me to Gythio. I stayed here for five nights for 800 DR a day (about $4.5 CAD), tired of being constantly rained on. And most of all, exhausted and extremely blistered from walking.

Five nights later I pushed on to Sparta, spent the night in a worm catacomb, and the day after visited Mystra -- once home and capital of the Byzantine Empire. This 42 kilometer day of walking made me re-evaluate my position for I could feel my body beginning to give out. Thinking on it, I decided I had accomplished what I set out to do in Greece. I had gained some real hard experience on the road -- hands on experience before Muslim contact and communication.

The purpose of it all was not to kill myself, but to condition myself. Slow things down, think a bit, get away from the city mentality, see something different -- all in preparation for what I really wanted to see and study and evaluate. Now thinking with a clearer head I decided to take a bus to Athens, did so, stayed two nights in Festos hostel, met this ultra-hyper American from California, we jammed to James Brown (singing "I feel good!") in the streets under the Acropolis, then I caught another bus to Istanbul.

Twenty hours later, I tell you -- nothing prepared me for what I was to walk into and see. Kingdoms had never struck such grandeur in my mind. But an Empire such as the Ottoman soon told me that man could achieve such architectural masterpieces.

I kid you not, the (enclosed) picture of the Blue Mosque is for real. When I rounded the corner to the Hippodrome Square for the first time I had to sit down and try to take this 'fantasia palace' in -- I had to catch my breath. I have walked around it, been in it, listened to the prayers, and beaten Istanbul's streets for eight days now. And still, every time I come back to my hostel and see this building I can scarcely believe it. It has to be the most beautiful building I have ever seen in my life.

The first week of my stay I took in a lot of the mosques (Muslim churches), museums, palaces, towers, bazaars, and squares more than willingly -- at long last I was studying something else than Christian-inspired events! At long last I could be surrounded by an un-Trinitarian religion and talk to people who truly believed in One Almighty God. I am awed by everything in Islam.

Turkey is incredibly cheap. A gorgeous hostel is costing me $4 CAD a night. I talked to a few Turkish students who live with their parents and this $4 is expensive for them! Their parents pay 500,000 Turkish Lira, or the equivalent of about $37 CAD, for one month in an apartment. Pretty wild, huh? If I get seriously into a Qur'an study here I may even throw myself into an apartment for a couple months, but right now I'm content to reside beside the Blue Mosque.

Today, having just come back from supper I figured my day's expenses at $14.96 CAD. For this I did all my laundry, paid for my room, bought a couple of beautiful Arabic calligraphy cards, 1.5 liters of water, and a tasty dinner: lentil soup with a bannock type bread, the Doy Doy Restaurant Special (kebabs), rice, pudding for desert, and a Pepsi to wash it all down.

The past couple of days I have been eating less and less to condition myself to participate somewhat in Ramadan, just to get a feel for fasting. Muslims believe that Muhammad received the Qur'an from God during the month of Ramadan. From February 11 to March 12, 1994, people fast during the daylight and feast during the night. Whether one wants to participate in the fasting is a decision made by each individual Muslim and not a strict commandment. Today was the first day I ate nothing, though I drank .5 liter of water. About 7:30pm I finally got around to eating dinner.

One museum I visited was pretty neat -- in the holy relics section they had a letter written by Muhammad, Mohammed's swords and bow, a beard whisker from Muhammad, a tooth from Muhammad (encased in a box and not visible), and get this -- John the Baptizer's hand and occipital bone (top part of one's skull). Crazy stuff, and I haven't even hit the heart of Islam yet in Arabia! Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt -- !! Do you think I will make India and visit Dhanalakshmi my sponsor child? Who knows.

Istanbul is the only city built on two continents -- Europe and Asia. Yesterday I crossed the bridge over to Asia for the first time, not to be the last I promise you. But at last I have found the groove I came here to find -- without alcohol and drugs, without people if I want to be alone (most of the time I do), without the pressure of others, and the comfort to continue my research.


March 21, 1994
Letter to Katharyn Phelps
Istanbul, Turkey

Having completed reading the Old Testament the other day in the shadow of the Blue Mosque, I rewarded myself with an English translation and commentary of the Qur'an. It's mine again, all mine. Cost me $25 US for the best version, but hey, to find that elusive truth it's worth the expenditure. I have met many a helpful Muslim too. It's amazing how many brothers one instantly has when one says he is searching for the Truth, even more here in Islamic territory. People really get excited when I say I have rejected my Christian baptism.

I'm angry at my fellow youth for not searching and changing internally, but most of all I'm angry at myself because I do not change. The old traps are so effective. People say I'm too hard on myself. I disagree. I don't think I'm hard enough.

I must depart now, gotta keep digging in the dirt -- as Peter Gabriel would say. Gotta keep pushing on these weary and worn bones through the cold muck and mire and try to break on though to the other side -- to that postcard sun and smile.


March 23, 1994
Letter to Christa Prusskij
Ihlara Valley, Turkey

Coming into Islam during the month of Ramadan proved interesting. I fasted too to get a feel for it, though only for a few days. I must admit, it was very effective and caused me to be humble indeed. And, like usual, any questions I had concerning the religion was always welcomed and more than happily answered. Several times, just sitting in a mosque while writing notes proved to be more than the average curious Muslim could handle. Introductions got to be a regular thing.

I already have my Syrian visa. It's valid for three months to allow me to get within reach of the borders, but only good for 15 days inside the country. If Istanbul has done anything, it has made me more confident about heading east. In Hungary I would have never dreamed of going to Syria! Later on, in the months to follow, I hope to conquer Iran, Pakistan, India, perhaps Nepal, then China -- gawd! So many countries!

One New Zealander told me he went from London to Beijing, then back to London overland for only $2500 US. Ten months of living in total. At this same rate of expenditure, I will be traveling for years!

To research all the great and small religions of the world. This is my dream. To become exposed to all the veins of philosophy and continually ponder on the wonder of existence, trying to piece the puzzle and mystery together and find that elusive thing called Truth. Call me foolish, but I must have purpose. I must know why I am here, and why there is so much injustice in the world. To say we don't have any origin is to say we don't exist, so from where did we spring? How? When?

I had no religious upbringing, and like I said earlier I never even opened a holy book till I was almost 20. But this desire has been burning in me for years before. … I now follow through and enter religions to sift through them -- are they just? Are they for everybody? Does it account for what is happening today? What has happened in the past? One God? Many gods? Etc., etc.


March 31, 1994
Letter to Christa (continued)

I tell you, this trip is turning out to be quite the thing. I arrived in the Ihlara Valley safely enough, and managed to grab me a 'klingon' as well. (I really didn't want anybody's company, but Hussein more or less invited himself.) Did some walking in the valley that day and had the best night's sleep, filled with dreams.

I awoke the next morning. As I was writing in my journal he had warmed up some milk and offered it to me, quite persistently after I said no the first few times. To shut him up I took the milk and slammed the thing, continuing with my journal. He gave me more -- I slammed it too.

It wasn't more than five minutes when I began to notice feeling funny. Light-headed, I think. I had not trusted the guy from the first moment he introduced himself, and immediately it clicked in that he had drugged me. Instantly I got up and went to the bathroom. "Are you taking a shower?" he asked. "Yeah", I replied, closed the door, splashed cold water on my face. No good.

I knew I was going to go down, so I quickly took off my money belt and looked for a place to hide it. With the water still running to hide the sounds of my actions, I stood up on the toilet and put the whole belt behind a pipe which came out of the wall and went up into the ceiling. I stepped down, turned the water off, opened the door, walked to my bed and blacked out.

I awoke about ten hours later to see the insides of my backpack scattered around in a pile on the floor -- papers, journals, clothes -- all rummaged through and searched. He had seen my money belt the previous day. Wondering if he had found that, I jumped out of bed, went to the bathroom, looked up and found it -- nothing was missing. I had succeeded in this much. All that was missing was an envelope from my backpack which held my foreign currency souvenirs -- Yugoslavian Dinars, and Bulgarian-Greek-Italian notes -- worth, at most, about $10 Canadian.

The kicker to all this is that he had tons of Kuwaiti 20 Dinar bills in his wallet. As a single 20 Dinar note is worth $96 CAD, the guy obviously has problems in his skull if he think he needed some more money. All I can formulate is that he has nothing better to do in life than rob people, not because he needs to, but just because. (I then went back to sleep for an additional twelve hours to shake off the drug completely.)

The Ihlara Valley itself was about ten kilometers long. All along the valley's walls were homes carved into the rock as well as chambers, monasteries, and chapels -- dating back at least 1500 years. Great stuff to see. Some of the chambers were interconnected, forming small communities.

But it wasn't until a few days later when I moved into another nearby town, Goreme, that I saw big communities carved into valleys and cone-like formations called fairy chimneys. To shelter themselves from continuous raids, the early Christians built these places for protection.

In the two large underground cities of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, one was able to see safety devices. In tunnel passages they would carve out an adjacent room and put large wheel stones in them. If invaders came the wheel is rolled into blockage position and nobody gets in. Kaymakli was a maze of tunnels and rooms going down five floors in the ground. Derinkuyu had larger, more organized rooms and went down eight floors. I'm now in the city of Antakya, right on the Turkish-Syrian border.


Syria, Jordan, Egypt

June 1 & 2, 1994
Letter to Michelle St. Aubin
Cairo, Egypt

I am high overhead Cairo right now, en route back to Istanbul. My stay in Egypt lasted 45 days. I'm more than ready to push new ground.

Syria was spectacular! What a country! Or rather, the friendliness of its citizens. Just recently opening up for mass tourism, the people were happy to see tourists and really treated me with warm hospitality. Aleppo, Lattakia, Tartous, the desert ruins of Palmyra, then Damascus. Crusader castles (the Crac des Chevaliers, over 800 years old, was immaculate), Roman cities, Baal Temples, souqs, citadels, and lots of tea.

Onto Jordan! Well, hold the enthusiastic pitch, because for most of it I was on the toilet (I blamed the falafels). I did manage to take a float in the Dead Sea though. And I visited Petra, spending a few days combing and climbing the hills. One of its elaborately carved building facades was used in the movie Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. Here my vigor was restored and I ate like a pig. From Petra to Aquaba, where I picked up my Egyptian visa -- and after taking a ten hour ferry ride, entered Egypt!

I spent 45 days here combing through each archaeological site. How you would love the land of the Pharaohs. Crossing the wilderness that Moses did 3500 years ago (the Sinai peninsula), I had a brief stopover in Dahab for three days to do some Red Sea snorkeling (Gulf of Aquaba actually).

Continued on to Sharm el Sheik, then Hurghada by ferry, to Aswan by taxi. Aswan's mood was most satisfying. Combining day excursions with river Nile walks, park sits, market browsing and people watching I must say I had a relaxing time.

The taxi ride out to the Abu Simbel (the Sun Temple of Ramses II & the Temple of Isis), it only gave our group 1.5 hours to see the whole site. I could have easily spent 3-4 hours admiring such grandeur (and yes, thinking of all the people that died making it). I visited the Philae Temple too but was rushed through it by the boatmen. I swore once I hit Luxor that it would be mine to see for as long as I liked.

To reach the Temple of Edfu, I joined with a felucca (boat) team of five in a three day and three nights river Nile trip, visiting Kom Ombo along the way and the Temple of Horus once we had split up from the boat. The river trip along the Nile had some nice sights, especially the villages we docked in, with the women dressed like rainbows, kids like rag dolls, and houses made of mud.

We perfected our Egyptian backgammon skills while drifting down river -- there was hardly any wind the whole three days. And we had more than enough time to lay back and observe the fisherman along the river, notice the children scurry around in boats as though they were scooters, watch the evening sky settle in, and listen to sounds of the Hadj (pilgrimage) festivals in the night distance. One festival seemed to go on all night.

The kids were also very fond of wanting our pens -- and they never tired of asking for them. "Pen! Pen! Column! Column! Baksheesh! Pen!" It wasn't until Luxor that I finally figured out what the hell they wanted them for. Souvenirs? Nope. They get the pens from tourists and later on in the evening go around to the local shops wheeling and dealing with the owners to see what kind of resale price they can get for them.

Come Luxor I was ready for some physical activity. The first full day of touring I stuck to the town itself and took in the Luxor Temple, Karnak and Luxor museum where I saw that immaculate statue of Tuthmosis III. The second day I crossed the river and peddled my bike to the Valley of the Kings. Twelve tombs were open and twelve was the number I visited.

I'll forever remember being the only person in one of those tombs which contained a huge pharaonic-form sacrophagus lid. Just me and him and the silence of 2.5 thousand years. Out of all the tombs I saw that day, again Tuthmosis III stole my heart with his unique tomb of Old Kingdom artwork -- in the ante-chamber 741 stickman dieties. In the tomb itself -- texts detailing the journey to and through the Netherworld.

The third day I spent visiting Hapshetsup's Temple, the Assasif Tombs, the Noble tombs, and the Ramesseum. From the fantastic Noble tombs, Sennofer was by far my favorite with the grapevine ceiling.

The fourth day I took to Abydos and Dendara with two crazy Danish guys. Abydos Temple was the best one I have seen so far in Egypt. I couldn't believe the perfect condition of the bas-reliefs! The walls were as smooth as the day they had been carved it seemed.

Back in Luxor for my fifth day, I finished off the sights with Medinet Habu, Valley of the Queens and Deir el-Medina, leaving for Cairo that night.

I stayed here for almost three weeks. I took my time with the sights. Studied my Qur'an in the public libraries, took in a couple of football (soccer) games, window shopped, ate kushari, stuffed my face with $2 chickens and other delicacies, pondered on what I was going to do next, and broke my squeamishness of showering with swarms of three inch cockroaches.

I visited two pyramid sites -- the Great One of Giza (of course) and Saqqara. The largest pyramid, the one which Cheops built in the fourth Egyptian dynasty (about 2500BC), is another moment I will not soon forget. I had it all to myself for about ten minutes. Being allowed access into the inside corridors of the pyramid, I sat in the main tomb chamber and listened to the wind howl through the ventilation shafts, telling me what it sounded like in there for the 4500 years prior to my arrival.

Using my guidebook I swept through the street itineraries of Old Cairo, Coptic Cairo, the two Dead Cities, the Citadel, Islamic Cairo, and everything else in between.

The Egyptian museum -- I combed through each artifact. It took me three consecutive days of five hours each to complete it. No damn Christian-Madonna pictures, no #%&)@* headless Greek statues -- but the Pharaohs with hands clenched around the flail and the crook, arms crossed and looking convincingly immortal in Osirian position.

From the middle of the 3rd millenium BC, the history of the pharaohs was vividly depicted, including Tut-Ankh-Amon's gold and the peculiar ideas and works of Akhenaton's rule. It was all such new ideas to me that I couldn't help but going mad in collecting the artwork in postcard form for my journal. This journal, #40, has seen me devise revolutionary techniques to house all these picture, postcard and ticket souvenirs, believe me!

At long last I figured out another puzzle when I got to Cairo. I remember my friend Marc in Budapest telling me all about his three week experience in Egypt, and how he got hassled so much because of his long hair. By this time I had had a little more Muslim exposure than he did when I arrived in Cairo, so it eventually clicked one day that long hair on a man is a questionable trait of being homosexual. The people would always ask me if I was a man or a woman. At first I thought they were joking and sometimes replied "both".

But as time wore on I realized it was a little more than that -- even some of the women asked me. Before coming to understanding, this recurring question got to be quite frustrating and I always felt like snapping back "Well, what the hell do you think?!" -- because always my hair would be noticed and brought up. Of course I didn't realize that homosexuality was such a widespread thing throughout Muslim territories. I have been asked to … ahem … to which I politely refused.

Here in Istanbul, I find out I was not the only man to receive such propositions! Some guys here in Turkey were getting asked out every day by local men! And these travelers are without long hair. It seems because the Muslim men have isolated the women so much, driven her into isolation from them and made her so 'pious', they're stuck without any … umm … relief.

As one Egyptian youth put it, "the first month you can talk to an Arab woman a little bit. After six months she might let you hold her hand. After a year, maybe she will let you kiss her. More like two years." I also found out, here in Turkey that farm animals are not such a far-fetched story after all. Men -- control thy passions!!

During the last three weeks in Cairo, I realized I had come to another crossroads in my trip and was at a loss on what to do next. Boxed in by two civil wars to the west and south of Egypt, my options were to go farther into Africa -- my doorway into the heartland being Nairobi by airplane --or to circle back to Istanbul and look towards the Orient. Africa or Asia?

For information to help me with my decision, I raided the Canadian and American embassy files detailing each African country's political status and overall stability (like crime rates), finding what I hoped to be a possible overland route. After doing this I decided on Istanbul and the Orient.

Probably the most prominent reasons as to why I didn't choose Africa was (1) Egypt was already hot, hot, hot, going farther south would have been probably been unbearable; and (2) I didn't feel I was ready to handle it yet. This ignorance on my part, combined with the excessive temperatures, would have spelled an uncomfortable time I thought, so I decided on Istanbul and the 'friendlier', more 'familiar' Asia.

Girl, you have no idea how lucky we are to live in Canada. It's unreal out here. Men spend all their lives never leaving the street corner they are selling a handful of T-shirts and sunglasses on. Monthly wages in Cairo -- a cop and an accountant I met -- 200 (Egyptian) pounds, or $60 US a month. Frustration wreaks from every youth's presence as they are trapped in their country.

The desk clerk downstairs in this hostel I am staying in, upon counting all the money in my belt so I could put it in the safe, told me it would take him 1.5 years to make the $2500 US I was carrying on me, never mind trying to save $2500, or the equivalent of 75,000,000 Turkish Lira. And when you are constantly asked by hundreds of people, "how can I get to Canada?", you begin to appreciate some things. Did you ever think you would hear me say that we are lucky to live in Canada??

It was Greece when I began trying to incorporate the travel into my search for Truth and discipline. While I have faltered many a time, it is always my anger which keeps me trying the seemingly impossible task and keeping focused on the search. We gotta keep pushing for that elusive foundation we were all built on. Think. Think. Think. And nothing else matters.



Trials In Turkey

June 5, 1994
Letter to Ann & Glen W
Istanbul, Turkey

Already just being here for a few days my travel itinerary had to be altered. Initial plan was to head up through Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, taking the trans-Siberian railway through Mongolia into China. But gee, the only way I can get into Ukraine and Russia is to go through ONE travel company called Intourist. I must know exactly my days of entry and departure, and they book my hotels for me.

For example, in Moscow, one of the cheaper city limit hotels runs $48 US a night! Hah! No thanks. Now I am planning to enter the Far East through what would have been my return route. From Turkey -- to Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China and then -- ? -- till my dollars run out. In Hong Kong I have learned there are cheap flights to the west coast of North America for only a couple of hundred dollars US. Ah yes, a plan has formed (once again).

The Enlightenment thinkers remain a large chunk of my reasoning foundation. They realized in attempting organizational and social reform one had to understand man and his psychology first. For to keep blindly trying ruler after ruler and setting up law after law was not going to get anyone anywhere if they did not understand what they were dealing with. If the world is a reflection of our minds, then study man's mind and get to the heart of the matter.


June 13, 1994
A Letter to the General Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Istanbul, Turkey

I have been reading the Holy Qur'an for four months now. And traveling through Syria, Jordan and Egypt have helped me more than one can realize. These countries, being free from some of the Western peoples' excesses, have allowed me to think with a clear mind. The isolation from these influences and talking with those Muslims I could communicate with have given me a clearer insight into the Qur'an.

But now comes something different within Islam itself. While having been briefed on the Sunni tradition, I have had little contact with the Shiite. While assuredly I can study out of a textbook, I am sure one can realize the importance of contact and communication. I prefer to go to the source of information rather than consult and believe other men's opinions in books, for as we all know Truth can be distorted if information is not gained firsthand.

And it is with this in mind that I come before the Islamic Republic of Iran and its representatives: a chance to see with my own two eyes the country and its people, however long the given duration.


July 5, 1994
Letter to Katheryn Phelps
Istanbul, Turkey

When I returned to Istanbul (June 1) I was able to pick up a Pakistani visa very quickly, waiting only 24 hours after applying. However, on my first application for an Iranian transit visa I was refused. So I packed up an overnight bag and went to Ankara and applied again. Where Istanbul refused me after two weeks (they had supposedly 'misplaced' my application -- yeah, right), Ankara -- once making a careful study of my now spotless appearance (from top to bottom) -- gave me a visa in 24 hours!

But the country I expected little trouble with, India, is making me wait weeks! I still do not have it. To pass the ample time I have here, I am working as a receptionist in my hostel for a couple of weeks. Free food, free bed. It keeps expenses down and gives me something to do.

I figure I have enough dough-bread-moola-cash to last me another year. Out of that I plan to 'bake' most of that in India. I think I might have found what I have been looking for when I left Canada so many millions of seconds ago -- a place of 'retreat' to gain some level of objectivity by means of learning the practices of meditation. Place? The northern mountains of India.

I'm doing quite well with certain parts of my disciplining. It was sometime in the end of March that I had my last bout with alcohol. While I still have the urge once in a while to visit a disco/bar, I have managed to control myself from losing my marbles. So most of my time I spend thinking and writing, watching and reading, building an arsenal of words to explicitly define and expand the multiple truths out there I think is necessary for us to have happiness.

Though I have had fewer ecstatic highs than when I was doing 'the wild life', I certainly have had fewer lows too. In all, my present approach grants me much more stability to gain a further understanding of the world's processes -- the first step to an effective objective outlook. I credit the Islamic environment for me making such progress. The self-disciplining and internal revolution concept of the Islamic Jihad is something I highly esteem. I will undoubtedly look back at these past few months and give much-o thanks to Islam for helping me get my start.


July 20, 1994
Letter to Katheryn Phelps (continued)
Istanbul, Turkey

The last part of this letter comes to you on the threshold of me finally departing Istanbul. I'm so happy to be on the move again! Closer and closer to India where I will find the next stage of my search become a reality, I have no doubts about it. All my life have I had the stong desire to control my passions, to be my own master. No more will men have me in their vices, and no more will I bow to the destructuve comforts and adictions men chain themselves to make life tolerable. Freedom Through Discipline! Patience is what Istanbul has exercised, and I will need it in the coming months as I begin to 'de-toxify' my mind.


July 20, 1994
Letter to Melissa Christoffel
Istanbul, Turkey

Life is not a game, not a race, not a joke, not some contamination, or trying to get to heaven. Life is about respecting and admiring Truth. Nothing else matters.

If I choose to continue the lies I see around me in the world I have no right to criticize others, for I would be an absolute hypocrite. A person worse than the 'ignorant' liar because I am aware. Thus I can blame nobody for the world's condition but myself, for though my action or inaction I allow or condemn the lies. I cannot blame anybody for the way I am because I have the ability to correct. To issue blame doesn't correct anything. My anger can only be justifiably pointed at myself. I alone, a citizen of the 'free world', make my life. And I alone am responsible for the environment around me which I have some degree of control over.

Now is my anger understood? Each injustice I get served to me by somebody else only reminds me of my half-assed conduct. I don't go so far as to hold myself accountable for somebody else's actions (unless I was the cause), but I do get constantly reminded that the environment I am responsible for could be much better. I dislike the human population for its continuous self-deceptions. I dislike myself for the same reason. With such gross imperfection in the world one can see I am driven constantly by a vicious desire to discipline myself to the ways that are indisputably just.

So you see, when I expressed my desire to stay away from people that one night in the roof top cafeteria, I think it might have come out that I dislike people altogether. Not true. I do not hate people. A blind hatred would be totally unfounded. But I can hate what they do. So the most logical step would be to perfect my conduct so that they have no excuse to lie anymore. What gain would I give them by their lying? Should I give them a slap on the back and a hearty laugh -- "You're a good ol' chap!" -- when it's totally uncalled for? No, I will not. Quote: "It was all a colossal lie. What had held the whole thing together so long? A tacit conspiracy of pretense, of turning a blind eye and nodding and winking."


July 24, 1994
Letter to Fulya Abkulak
Istanbul, Turkey

Objectivity is Discipline. Discipline is Purity. In the first few weeks of June 1994 I became self-aware and declared war on myself. No more will I be chained. I am coming closer and closer to that objective every day. Since I no longer party, drink, etc., I have doubled / tripled/ qualrupled my time to think. And my journals are exploding with thoughts. Clearer than ever before, refined, daring and more willing than ever in desiring truthfulness. I attack what other men consider 'Holy' -- because more often than not this 'holiness' is mere superstition and not at all Truth.

As a favorite song of mine repeats over and over, "It's all up to you."



Pieces Of Pakistan

September 1, 1994
Letter to Violet & Roger Candow
Ziarat, Pakistan

Hello peoples! Greetings from an eight month seasoned traveler who is just now recovering from his second bout of nasty bacteria. After a frenzied 30 day rush through Iran I visited my first town in Pakistan, Quetta. One of the first sights here was noticing the militia screaming down main street in multiple vehicles to an end of town. Turned out two local tribes opened machine gun fire on one another and nine people croaked, with a whole bunch of others bleeding.

Luckily after three days I managed to find the bus station through the smog (it is horribly polluted in Quetta) and I am comfortably resting in a mountain retreat, with the smell of juniper forests in my nostrils. This small village resort of Ziarat used to be a summer retreat for the political bigwigs of Pakistani society, including our founding Pakistan Father Mr. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah -- who, of course, every Pakman's mother loves as her own son.

The patio teahouse, a minute walk from my room in the Rising Star Hotel, is quite attractive to relax in. Real grapevines make the ceiling, the usual dishes of food are available in a small kitchen off to one side, Indian music wails off in the background while bus after bus intermittently pulls up into the town courtyard with their video-game horns blaring loud and long enough to wake up Imam Ali in Iraq.

As for the rest of the town I have only stumbled through once trying to find the necessary ingredients to the re-hydration formula so I can't offer much description other than it is somewhat peaceful. All the more so since I can't understand what the people say. It's funny. A lot of people laugh or smirk when I say I don't know any other language. And I do mean it somewhat when I say I am stupid and they are smarter (being multi-lingual), but the flip side of the coin is that I don't have to listen to anyone's babble!

This doesn't necessarily hold true here in Pakistan as much as the other countries I have visited. The British occupation of these territories has had a large influence in the educational system, so English is widely spoken and many English publications are widely circulated.

My free thinking -- which I believe is the primary purpose of this trip …

I gained awareness of my self quite suddenly before my 24th birthday …

Having declared all out war on myself in early June, I have become fanatical on self-disciplining, adopting what Islam would call the Jihad. The 'Internal Revolution' is what I have begun. From my journal: "A man cannot fight a full scale war on two fronts against two brutal and highly resourceful enemies. The external Jihad is an excuse. The internal Jihad is the true test of Power. For it is not subdued by force, but by patience and the strength of one's mind.

All men who think they must fight for truth by means of guns and bombs -- how much effort goes into fighting the ingrained Satan? These so-called external enemies (which are other men) -- if all these men came to realization of their true calling, but bah! No man has the time to listen to the calling of the internal war, he is too busy fighting off his external enemies and calling himself glorious and heroic names while doing so."


September 9 to 18, 1994
Letter to Denise W
Ziarat to Karachi, Pakistan

(A brief introduction from Ziarat)
Ah, kind sister, colorful woman and dearest to thee,
forgive my silence, but now the words come to me.
It has been a while, ten months time since,
and the lack of communication has made me wince.
So I command my arm to go and fetch a pen,
that I may scribble and scrawl your name again.
I hope that all goes fine in your vast and wintry land,
and all good things have come to pass by the movement of your hand.
Tip my hat towards your ma and the bro,
and remind them that I will never be so far as to not say hello.
From where do I babble and bring forth this scratch?
Why Ziarat, Pakistan, of course, a village with no match.
I have come here to rest, think and be in solitaire.
More needs to be said for silence, for without it life I cannot bear.
Here dwell few people and lots of wide open space,
just what I need to further my study of the human race.
In Istanbul, when I look back, it was such a queer time;
but it was here, at long last, I came to accept my Nazi crime.
Vowing to do good, I declared war on myself,
determined to restrict vice, box it, and leave it on a shelf.
New heights of personal responsibility have I come to know,
and, in due time, this is what I hope my conduct to show.
Islam has had much to do with the education of my soul,
it has helped me to define and clarify the nature of my role.
We have all been called to happiness and the prosperity of peace,
it is unfortunate to see that men do not want such a release.
From their chains I have come and risen above,
discovering the meaning, beauty and tranquillity of true love.
In my youth, I had an aching and emptiness as deep as the sea,
but now I ease this pain by searching for the Will of Eternity.

(In Karachi)


Men think the enemy is outside themselves. Wrong. The only (potential) enemy we have is within. I can truly say to you, "Man is born in chains, but he can become free."

So many people in the world go for professions, big money, a family, when they know nothing of themselves. They blindly trap themselves and complain forever that things never stay beautiful. People are always looking into the past, to the future. They are always expecting to have happiness; thus they never live, but they hope to live. Too many people are scared to journey into themselves -- too scared of change -- always running away.

Gawd, it's so easy to see now, to see the way, if only I could hand out pieces of my brain. All I can do is tell people to read and get exposure -- to anything, to everything. But do it in an honest fashion -- do it to learn. Do everything to learn. And take notes.

I predicted five years ago that the man I would be today would know his destiny. Somehow I knew it would happen -- I just had to be radical enough to search for it. When I entered my second year of university with the sole intention of experimentation, I admit to getting lost in my experiments. But now that I've recorded it all, I see how I got lost.

For the first time in my life I am gaining control over my mind. All those screaming (contradictory) voices I am shutting up one by one -- no more will they confuse me. Freedom through discipline. In the next couple of years I expect to firmly establish control, and then I will seek to build beyond myself. Do not be like the world and seek the political revolution or institutional revolution. The true revolution, where all men should be looking, is inside.

The Muslims, as much as I love many of them, are too close to getting the bomb -- and this means trouble not only for the West, but for the world. Their view on fighting external enemies is insane, as it is with the rest of the world. I think we may very well see World War III in our lifetime, too many insane people out here, too many militant leaders. I have no doubt that we will destroy ourselves if left alone. This one reason itself is the cause for my belief (in a God). There must be Justice, or life isn't worth anything. So Justice there will be, in my dealings with myself.

My friend Gary in Vancouver told me nine months ago that I could be very successful in music if I was a musician. Look at me! My mind is focused always on the same thing, everything I see, do and think -- I cannot run away from my conscience.

There are so many people down in those streets. I try to place myself in other peoples' bodies to look through their eyes, try to see what they see. When I see myself in a reflection -- sitting on a bus, walking on the sidewalk -- I am frightened sometimes. To them I am just another person among many hundreds or thousands in the same street. He or she will never know me, my thoughts, my life -- and I will probably never see him or her again.

When I sit off in alleyways and watch the people pass me by, I am not even a few feet away, yet they do not see me. So much could we learn from one another, slipped by. I parallel this with my search. I walk by so many alleyways, so much do I miss. I missed 'infinite beauty', concerned with an always-to-be-forgotten thought.

And it is this I mean when I say I want to become balanced -- to control my mind and emotions. If we do not have control over such things, outsiders will always be able to play with us, use us to their advantage. "No more will we heed; no more will we bend, to the profitable crucifixion of an estranged heart drowning in lies told never to mend. Let us become one virtuoso of painted rage bleeding the contours of a new resolution, massaging the leech with a grain of salt, vomiting retribution via revolution."


October 13, 1994
An Entry from Journal #42
(Written while waiting to get a visa extension for my
passport in Islamabad, Pakistan. Modified in early 1996.)

Order. The complications of paperwork, office sections, stamps, approvals, are necessary as much as we hate them for the frustration they brew. Why? I have tried to comprehend the whole before -- of anything really -- from the life of an ant hill to my body and brain. Six billion people is the one that fascinates me the most as I watch them all.

To begin to understand the whole, we break things down into `partials.' Thus we set up dividers to come to be able to efficiently concentrate on a certain part of the whole. Applying this technique to today's situation, we see that the complexities which have arisen from the lack of personal responsibility and understanding by the world's peoples have caused the need for security, and all this grows so overwhelming after awhile that we freeze in confusion, not knowing where to begin -- too much!! (Hence the nervous breakdown so many people run risk of having.) The internal departments of an ever-expanding country are an absolute necessity .... to save us from ourselves!

A country's laws are usually the summary of history's grand ambitions, the harmony of life as an end in itself, to maintain peace and order for the immature people of the present until they are educated enough to take the perfecting process further, which fully lies in our personal responsibility (A) to ourselves, and (B) through ourselves, the world. Only through this educating and understanding process can we begin to take away the walls we have which are presently necessary to hold onto order.

The problems? Our narrow, jaded perceptions and a lack of continuing self-education has not led us to broaden the base of our understanding and enabled us to build a better, synthesized knowledge, but worked against us, in time, by compounding the problems of yesterday into the torn and disjointed states of relationship we see today.

The unenlightened, confounded as to the origin of so much external friction, push one another into frenzies, frustrated that things in this system take too long, are too difficult, too many obstacles and restrictions. Pressured, the masses of people under the leadership of an equal ignorance seek for constant revision of the present systems of order. In its extreme form, the destruction of present order altogether and a birth of some sort of new system.

We can see the people are focused entirely on the wrong thing, misdirected to fight enemies that do not really exist, for all wrong is started inside ourselves, tucked neatly out of sight, especially when we are already disturbed. When one stops and thinks in silence for awhile, one can catch glimpses of the slips in our reasoning and come to the beginnings of sensitive awareness. But for most individuals this is almost impossible as their environments have grown to be so blinding, the people taking refuge in methods of behavior which they feel helps them to embrace a peaceful world.

It is because of this, our continuously reinforced inverted perceptions, that the walls of present order have become the enemy we wish to destroy. But the more energy we strike into the cause of its destruction -- the more anger and hate we build -- the stronger our disillusionment grows, the more indestructible the 'enemy' looks, thus the more helpless we feel. Our worldwide family has turned against itself, and in frenzy of battling an infinite amount of supposed external enemies, all thinking is suspended and irrational behavior landslides to consume the planet.

(Outside enemies do exist, but they are compound enemies, or external manifestations of our unstable minds. When broken down into their simplest states, these problems could and would easily be shown as a series of offenses committed between individuals which were never rectified. The individual is always to be the bottom line.)




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