We land at the international airport in king Khalid near by the capital Riyadh.  Jesus, oh sorry Allah  ..  what a superb modern airport. I come here for a few days mainly to look and visit the special buildings . That’s the only thing a male is allowed to look at.. I mean women can’t be seen because they stay home or most of them are very covered . And covering yourself is not such a bad idea because once one leaves a building (all air-conditioned) the sun hits you right in the  face. It is like a micro wave experience.

This is an unrealistic,  superb and decadent place.  Here the meaning of spending big money is at hand. Money rules the world.

No, we don’t sleep in the Marriott  (maybe to expensive ??) but in a smaller but clean hotel near the most famous building of Riyadh the Kingdom Center.

As soon as I see it i know. Since this is not a guided tour  I decided that

I will spend my tree days vacation in , on and around this building . And cooling of in the swimming pool at the hotel of course.  Luxury  whit a capital letter ...

This is, in  my opinion,  the main attraction in Riyadh. The building with the two towers at a height of 297 meters connected by the "skybridge" can be seen from nearly each point of the city center. I buy a ticket at the main entrance which is right above Starbucks, price for adult is 25SAR. Open at 11am (my visit was on a Thursday and a Friday ), the spectacular view from the top does give one some perspective of the layout of the land. Although I am a bit (I mean a lot) afraid of heights I spend hours at the top.

I would say that the place is one of the best in the world. It's world class!

Yes although me visit was very limited to one place, I have the feeling I have seen it all …

25-04-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

The suicidal mission in the warzone of Shiites and the Sunnis.

Blowing up their own children, mothers and brothers. Maybe that is to negative I thought when we landed in Baghdad (without a bullet proof vest..). Nevertheless het security measures in the airport and everywhere are immense. But Iraq is Mesopotamia the land of the Tigris and Euphrates, the land of many histories of heroes and civilisations . We are here on a two day trip and we will only visit Bagdad. 

Iraq was once one of the first big  agriculturally developed places due to the water and the knowledge these people have. Driving through the streets or Baghdad, under local police protection we pass destroyed cars, buildings with holes and demolished roads.
Our destination is The Palestine hotel . It is  an 18-story located on across from the Sheraton Ishtar. These two hotels are favored by  journalists and media personal and the risks of terrorist attacks are minimized. The hotel overlooks the Tigris river   on its eastern bank and – it gives an idea how nice and peaceful this place would have been without these political and religious problem. We always eat in the hotel due to security reasons. There are always and everywhere lots of UN troupes in the streets and also lots of local police/military trying to secure building and protect people. Baghdad was and still is I think one of the most important cultural, commercial and intellectual center for the Islamic World. It is difficult to get in contact with people since we are a bit afraid and don’t want to take any risk.

But to understand what is happening now one needs to understand the two main currents namely the Shiites and the Sunnis.

Het voornaamste verschil tussen de twee groepen is dat volgens de sjiieten alleen de nakomelingen van Ali Ibn Abi Talib rechtmatige opvolgers van de profeet Mohammed zijn.The main difference between the two groups is regarded by the Shiites only the descendants of Ali Ibn Abi Talib (Ali Baba I call him)  rightful successors of the Prophet Mohammed.

This is something that goes above my comprehension level of religion, certainly when they start killing each other for this reason. The sooner we leave this place the better.

20-04-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

After long waiting’s in airports , lots of custom controls we finally arrive in   Kathmandu Nepal.

Nepal brings out memories like “Kuifje and the terrible snowman” or like a film I once saw about the Dalia lama and the first conflicts whit China. But no my mistake that was in Tibet and we are in Nepal . I always have problems not to “mix” Tibet and Nepal.

 First thing I do when we leave the airport is going up to a higher place to look if I can see the mount Everest ,   the highest point on Earth , but no it  is too far away.

We stay here two days , mainly in Kathmandu. The guides tell us that Nepal is not anymore a monarchy but a communistic republic (A bit like China I think).

And to my surprise I hear that there is a lot more Hinduism than Buddhism in Nepal. But again I must have mixed Nepal whit Tibet.

Most of the days we walk through the city and visit the splendid Hindu temples amongst them the temple in Patan which was the capital of one of the three medieval  Nerwar kingdoms.

In Nepal agriculture is the mean economic business and they have 29 million people to feed. But in Kathmandu it is of course tourism that is the most important business. I believe that at certain moment there are more tourists than Nepalese in the city. Due to the rising demand of luxury apartments many high rise complexes are being built and the looks or Kathmandu is more and more like a modern western city

I was expecting some “tantric traditional religious spiritual” environment  .. but it wasn’t there. Or am I once more mixing Tibet and Nepal ?

19-04-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

Ah Thailand  - sea, sun, beach and massage on the beach given by local girls  - the landing of the airplane woke me up. Chiang Mai :  No beach but five days of jungle travelling was waiting for us.  Jungle travelling :hiking and on the back of an elephant – elephant trekking they call it .  Is it comfortable this elephant , is there any air co and what about the mosquito’s and the black malaria?  By the way who’s idea was it to organise this ?  But I convince myself :  this will be fun end we will travel trough  a tropic mountain rain forest . This will be a unique experience for city people.

First day we rest and receive guidelines about clothing eating drinking jungle bio-degradable soap and elephants. We stay in a guest house near the national park of Khao Sok Jungle and the food is delicious. Don’t know how many people live in Thailand what is the political situation and economic challenge. Here in the jungle it is irrelevant.

We meet your local guides and we start travelling by vehicle up the mountain to the cloud forest above 2000 meters.  We receive  a lunch with  sandwiches, fruit, snacks and water in our small day pack for a first warming up 3 hour hike through the forest and jungle. The  guides point out all the wild plants, animals, birds and flowers to us. Some of the animals spotted on the trail are civet, sorow goat  and deer. This is the home of the Green Tailed Sunbird, which is found no other place in the world and a common resident . The rest of our journey is more of that and only two hours on an elephant  (and that was enough for me – although I like these animals very much).

It's useless to describe the beauty of the place ... the sounds ... the smells ... the exotic language ... the lost people weaving cotton on the mountains, the waterfall experience ....  you better go and experience it  for yourself.

16-03-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

We arrive in Kampot Cambodia at night. I was not very keen on visiting Cambodia since it reminded me of the war, killing people and napalm bombing. Anyway we have four days here and we will visit the famous Angkor site and its temple (or what’s left of it ..).

In the morning we join the group whom we will be travelling with. We also meet some Cambodian people and our female guild. These people are very friendly (and very small...). There are about 15 million Cambodians and most of them are Buddhism. The local language is like Chinese i mean it is “kherm”  and likely they speak English and have English tourist information papers . We go to the Angkor temples with the bus. The air co is working but we don’t feel it . It is terrible hot en wet. Imagine one has to fight in the woods in similar conditions. Luckily most of the mines from the war are removed and now it is safe to travel  .While eating delicious local food  (not much meat) locals  tell us that Cambodia is a monarchy and that they also have a democratic government – so that looks like Belgium. Although they tell me that economy is growing fast – i see a lot of poverty and a lot of people that are surviving without any luxury.  Nevertheless they all seem happy and are friendly ...maybe they believe that tourism will bring prosperity. Once outside the touristic places everything we want to do or say we needed a guide/translator – without we might as well stay in the hotel or the bus.

Finally we arrive in the former Khmer Kingdom of Angkor. These people produced some magnificent architectural building or structures more than thousand years ago . It is – even the ruins – very impressive, certainly if one knows that these people had no crane or bulldozer etc.  To many tourists and to much commercial pushing can’t take away the feeling that we have seen something unique before it will disappear due to over exploitation and due to time doing its work. Leaves me with thousand digital picture’s which I will have to sort and to comment so I will remember what was what ... although it was unforgettable.

13-03-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke  

Today we got up early. We have two days to visit Indonesia. From east Timor taking a boat to Kalimantan.  Its a joke – so we will visit only a part of the huge country and see a lot of water. We have a local guide that enthusiastically (in difficult English) gives us some basic information (while i am hoping not to get seesick on the first part of our journey.  In 1945 Indonesia became independent

The official name is :”Republic of Indonesia”. The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta. Whit 235 million people Indonesia is very populated country. In Indonesia they speak “Basha Indonesia” but also Englisch, Dutch and local dialects (the most widely spoken is Javenese)

Indonesia is a vast archipelago with about 13,700 islands. It is also the fifth most populated country on earth and the third largest democracy in the world. I think our guide was a teacher in a former life…

Once arrived on a tropic Kalimantan we wait at the small airport to take an even smaller plane from Kota Blaipan to Kuchin. While waiting we see a lot of men and no women. The guide explains that about 90% are Muslim. Indonesia had been noted for its relatively high level of religious tolerance, until recent years when many conflicts between Muslims and Christians have occurred. He  thinks that in the future this religious problems will compromise the economic and democratic possibilities.

I tell him that it seems to me that there is  also a lot of work to do concerning “women’s rights” and for a western tourist Islam religion has to much impact on society and on the way an individual should live.

The guide quickly changes subject and says with some pride that Indonesia is what they call and emerging economic country. Indonesia has a market-based economy in which the government plays a significant role.

Meanwhile we fly over an beautiful country and don’t see a lot of it …. I have to come back here – minimum a month – to discover the culture people and nice country sites…

03-03-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Pieter-Jan Van Haeverbeke