Author Archives: mrmakdeck

My History with the Bicycle – Part 1

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Naselle, Washington, in a motel where sang karaoke with members of the Hell's Angels, 2010.

Naselle, Washington, in a motel where sang karaoke with members of the Hell’s Angels, 2010.

 

My memory is on of my lacking faculties. That’s why I take tons of pictures, to blow on the fading embers of yesterday and the day before that. I don’t remember my first bicycle. I do remember learning to ride it. My grandfather was suppose to teach me, but teaching requires leaving the house on your own will, at least to the sidewalk that runs in front of it. At that time, that was not something Zeda (grandfather in Yiddish) was willing to do. So I turned to my best friend at the time, my neighbor, who was three years older than me. I remember I was older than most kids, learning to ride my bicycle, but that was nothing new to me. My motor skills developed in an odd fashion. I learned to crawl backwards and when I started to write words and numbers, they too, came out backwards. Luckily this backwards trend did not affect the direction of my cycling, thanks to the all-powerful gravitational pull of hills. I remember my friend’s teaching method to get me to cycle was to roll me down the sidewalk that led to his front door. I remember I fell numerous times. But I have no recollection of that first bicycle.

 

Forks, the middle American town that climbed to fame due to a couple of books.

Forks, the middle American town that climbed to fame due to a couple of books.

 

My love affinity for cycling did not come about straight out of the gate. In fact, I don’t remember riding my bicycle at all as a child, barring a charity bike ride that we did in Grade 7, where I flew over my handlebars, scraping up my entire left forearm, which still bares the scars of the gravel that lodged itself deep into my skin. I actually remember thinking that I never wanted to ride bicycles again after that. So why did I ever get back on?

 

Sunset over Port Townsend, 2010.

Sunset over Port Townsend, 2010.

 

I attribute the resurgence of me and any interaction with any two wheeled vehicle with my mother. We were in the kitchen one day, discussing this and that and him and her (my mom loves gossip), when my mom started talking about my childhood. She recollected that when I was younger that I was not a very physical child, but that I was very smart. I told her, I could be physical if I wanted to. Her response was a faint reprise of what she had said about me as a child, “it’s okay, you’re smart”.

 

“Well…I could do something physical”

 

“Like what?”

 

“I could cycle…to Mexico”

 

And that’s where it all started. Two and a half weeks or so later I was on a bicycle, fully loaded, overwhelmingly uneducated as to what I was doing, heading south, against early spring headwinds, that if I had done any research, would realize, blow in the complete opposite direction in the summer. I remember THAT bicycle. I don’t remember makes of bicycle, unless it’s really apparent, but I do remember it was black. I remember I got it second hand from Our Community Bikes and I remember taking 3 hours to replace two tires and put on fenders. I remember going on a single training ride of 50km. Along with panniers, I wore a 60-pound backpack and looked like a torpedo coming down the highway. In Washington, my lovely steed was named, Klalita, after the Klallam tribe of Washington (their true name means “strong people”). With only a broken chain in the middle of the Redwood Forest in California (which was my fault for forgetting to take off the bungee chords when I went for an evening ride to the store), in two months, Klalita and I made it to the Mexican border. I thought about crossing onto the Mexican side. But Klalita, obese with my stuff loaded upon her, wouldn’t squeeze through the pedestrian gate. Asking a guard for permission, I stuck one foot into Mexico, took a photo of me and Klalita and was on my way.

 

The famous Custard King, in Astoria, Oregon, 2010.

The famous Custard King, in Astoria, Oregon, 2010.

 

Klalita had one more trip in her. Global Agents for Change, a now defunct charity and social incubating program that raises awareness and funds for micro-credit loans, ran Ride to Break the Cycle, a fundraising and educating bike ride from Amsterdam to Istanbul that same summer. I registered and two weeks after my trip to Mexico, I was in Amsterdam, prepping for a 5,000 km journey with a group of 12 or so other riders to Istanbul (our numbers dwindled to 5 by the end). From the local fix-it on the trip, I learned to true my wheel and readjust my brake pads. Klalita had a few minor issues on the way. Her rear axle snapped in the middle of Germany and the old chain finally died along the Danube in Romania, but aside from that, she sailed like a celebrity yacht to the finish line. After I returned to “life”, my job, my new home in downtown Vancouver, I rode Klalita everywhere. I worked about 45 minutes, uphill from home, and every morning at around 6:15am, rain or shine, I headed out, clipped into Klalita, across the Burrard Street bridge and up the endless array of hills that make up my fair city (well…not always fair, but that’s another discussion).

 

Unknown town, Oregon.

Unknown town, Oregon.

 

December 7th, 2010 changed that routine indefinitely. My memory isn’t top tier at all (nor probably middle tier), but I do remember that that it was drizzling a bit as I came over the bridge that morning. That’s the last memory I have, before some mild, hazy visions of being inside an ambulance. A truck coming off the bridge hit me from behind. I flew into the air and landed on my helmet, which flew off my head on impact. I had abrasions to my leg, fractured by spine in two places and had slightly bled into my brain.

 

Klalita getting a tune up from Steve-O's self appointed cousin. Ede, Netherlands, 2010.

Klalita getting a tune up from Steve-O’s self appointed cousin. Ede, Netherlands, 2010.

 

My Klalita suffered the worst and when I saw her again, this lovely creature who had taken me over ten thousand kilometers in a single year, was disfigured and broken. I fell to my knees and cried until my eyes hurt. “How could someone hurt something so lovely?” If it wasn’t for Klalita’s steel frame, essentially, her spine, my spine would have been a lot worse off and my life wouldn’t be what it is now. Recovery took three months. I was scared of roads. They made me nauseous. I don’t remember when it was, but I remember that it was soon after I got the go ahead to return to work in full swing, that I returned to cycling. I couldn’t throw Klalita away. I visit her from time to time in my parents’ basemen, where she permanently rests.

 

Miss you Klalita.

Miss you Klalita.

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Why I Travel Blog

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Church of St. Alexander, Warsaw

Church of St. Alexander, Warsaw

There are the obvious reasons why one travel blogs. To share travel adventures, through photos and words, trying to encapsulate an experience to the reading and viewing audience. To imbue in others the same excitement, curiosity and inspiration that the blogger felt whilst traveling. To pinpoint exact emotional exaltation.

Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw

Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw

This is also the general sentiment of why I travel blog as well. The intricacies of it are way more personal. Solo travel for me only started at 24, with a trip to Brno, Czech Republic with a theatre show that ended up, with a very unexpected job in Prague and then a 4-month expedition, tracing my family’s heritage through Eastern Europe. I had never a train before and was thrilled with sticking my head out of the window, letting the wind make my eyes squint, a tornado of my brown hair, like a dog in a car ride. That same trip, I was introduced to couchsurfing. Travel took on an entirely new meaning, where it wasn’t simply placards and buildings and other travelers, it was local people, personal accounts, trans-ocean humour, Ipod music exchanges, one or two dance sessions, a game of golf in Dijon, foraging for dinner in Groningen. All I had read about travel came from books and those books laid out the foundational blueprints of how to travel. Yet there had to be something else, something more expansive and less focused on the MUST SEES and the MUST EATS.

Warsaw Uprising Monument, Warsaw

Warsaw Uprising Monument, Warsaw

So blogs. First big websites like Trip Advisor (which I still use as a base for exploration), then more obscure travel sites like Atlas Obscura (which, if you haven’t checked out, is the best source for Off the Beaten Path travel oddities), to the worldwide blogosphere of adventurers, trippers, dream followers and spontaneity experts. I was hooked to their words, as many of them weren’t simply telling me what they saw, but how they felt, how places impacted them or didn’t. Blogging is personal creative writing, an individual’s take on the world through their eyes, through their pens, through their keyboards. It can be laced with superlatives, poetics, judgment, digressions, failure, no words at all, all visual. I blog, even if only a few read it, to show them my version of cities and towns, of nature and of bike trips. They are my visceral accounts of the world. They are my endorsement of decorative language, trying to squeeze out the true emotion I felt in a singular moment, possibly written days after. I cannot prescribe nor would I ever want to, a reaction to what I write or how it effects where people decide to go. I hope that the few who do read it, have an opinion or an idea that sprouts from it. I hope, as that’s all one can do with putting writing into the public’s glance, that it pushes people to either travel or challenge themselves, ask questions, look unto other blogs to continue planning or imagining a more complete global sphere.

All You Can Eat - Japanese, European and......everywhere else in all time and space? Babalu's in Warsaw. Felt so so so sick after this.

All You Can Eat – Japanese, European and……everywhere else in all time and space? Babalu’s in Warsaw. Felt so so so sick after this.

I frequently embellish memories. I cannot remember exacts, so I shameless fill in the blanks. I blog because I love to write. I love to reimagine what I have seen, to reinvigorate the recollections with verbose imaculations and neologisms (such as imaculations). Though, recent travel, via bicycle gives me the space to write as I travel. I stop where I want and if I feel the urge, I jot down the day, in summation or elongation. I write in a blue tent, where one of the poles is partially snapped due to a crow landing on it, by the waning sun, drifting behind the red mountains just outside of Santa Monica. That is an actual memory. The things that I lock into my brain vault are sometimes obscure fragments. Sometimes, due to my prior habits during travels (drinking copious amounts at night), memories are literally slits of narrow light with broken and blurred images. I write as form of self-preservation, because one of my greatest fears is loosing it all to time. Not necessarily as a legacy of what I have accomplished, but more as something for myself to look back on and simply account for what I have done. Not as somewhat of a CV for pomposity, but more as a timeline that I existed.

Warsaw Uprising Museum

Warsaw Uprising Museum

While my travels include people and places, I also consciously set quests for myself. I blog to uncover gems, maybe not ones that were necessarily covered by layers of sediment, just ones’ that maybe overlooked, underappreciated, the map to get to them has been used as scratch paper or made into papier-mâché for a birthday piñata (what I am saying is that no one cares where this place is). Blogs and websites are full of hints and my duty with these hints is to test them out and confirm their validity. This description seems quite vague without an example. The city of Xian, China, was the ancient capital for hundreds of years. Tourists flock here to cycle the ancient walls and see the UNESCO approved Terracotta Warriors. What very few people know about, is that at the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi, a ways out of city, another burial plot was opened to revealed, miniature terracotta figurines, along with terracotta livestock and chariots. In total, over 50,000 pieces are on display. Along with this amazing experience, is a very beautifully set up underground museum, with large vaulted glass walls revealing the digs, but beside and below you, you are free to trapes around the tomb area, see several of the tomb gates, and watch an AMAZING hologram film about the history of the site (no 3d glasses required). This place is completely under the radar and when I got there, I basically had free range of the place (think Night at the Museum, minus the reanimation of historical items). There were a handful of different directions as to how to get to this place, since it was in an odd location of the highway, leading north of the city. Armed with a few of these Internet found directions, plus the Chinese characters to this place, I ventured out to confirm this place’s existence. Luck had it that the #4, the first bus I got on and was on my list, was confirmed by the bus driver to be the correct bus. For me, that could happen is I end up going somewhere else and possibly exploring something unexpected. So it’s a win win for me.

Warsaw Couchsurfing Dance Party

Warsaw Couchsurfing Dance Party

I blog to interact with people. Blogs are a dialogue, a community of shared experiences and responses, where the responses may come in the form of words or in exploration of what the blogs’ describe. I hope that as this site builds that this dialogue fills the forums and itinerary of the new site (which will be up THIS MONTH) with evolving dialogues and information that result in people testing the waters, unburdening themselves with limits by asking questions and seeing the blog reflect your inquiries, with maybe not always answers, but further explorations, adding points to the map that I will travel to confirm experiences and places or discover errors, saving you the hassle of a fruitless expedition to nowhere. My blogs and my travels will mirror your dreams, aspirations, desires, or highlight your wonderful memories, follow your deep incites, possibly making travel a more tangible possibility instead of something you do on free weekends or something you’ll do when your decrepitly old.

Babushka, Kiev

Babushka, Kiev

I blog, because it makes me feel wonderful. It’s me facing my fears as well. I travel around the world, yet I am scared of publishing my writing. I believe it is good, that it is informative and well written, but am afraid of it being said to be otherwise. This is my version of being bold and it holds more importance that what many would be considered a blip, not part of any creative career. But blips are my greatest assets. Microcosms are my favorite worlds. I am worried about not getting anywhere; I am worried about denouncing things in favor of acceptance.

Orthodox Priest.

Orthodox Priest, Kiev.

Traveling Avec Les Others – What Direction Thumbs is This Idea

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Traveling isn’t complete without people. Sure there are desolate places in the world. But many times, what makes these far flung corners even more amazing, are the miraculous souls that dare to inhabit them, against all odds and possibly most socially accepted forms of reason (which I don’t usually adhere to). Locals make a locality something special. They are part of the history, the food, the culture, the language, the sites, the smells, the adventure, the mystique and, above all, the numerous interactions you will have, which build upon a point in the world’s unique identity.

It is all part of the experience, enriching and enlivening it. But does sharing these connections, these somewhat profoundly personal moments, improve when it is shared with others? Or is to their detriment?

I think like the experience, this is also a very individualized question, based upon what you want out of travel and how easy-going you are. I say easy-going, which is usually attributed as a positive trait. In this case, I see it more as something neutral, that is neither good nor bad, but just the way someone is. I, myself, am easy-going in that if an amazing suggestion to do or try something essentially local is suggested, which doesn’t involve bodily harm or unbalanced heights (I am fine with ladders), I may take it up, as not miss out on a once in a lifetime bit of spontaneity. Yet in other cases I am not as easy going, and want to do, what I want to do. The hour glass sand is rushing, and I see no particularly good reason to waste a grain of it.

I have travelled both solo, in a group and as a couple and with friend. From personal experience, here are some of my observations and thoughts.

AS A GROUP:

THE CONTEXT: In 2010, I cycled from Amsterdam to Istanbul with 13 (or so) cyclists for a charity bike ride.

The Experience

Since we were traveling under the banner of an organization and were representatives of our country, there were certain guidelines that we had to adhere to, which we advertently broke, such as not having a beer with lunch when we are passing through places like Germany and the Czech Republic. We were also supposed to travel in pods of at least 2 or 3 riders. This was fine when you were cycling with someone who cycled at your speed and wanted to see what you wanted to see or at least would wanted to DO THINGS, as opposed to NOT DO THINGS. Here in lies the problem:

When people are spent, tired, and dirty and on trip of this nature, they want to do what they want to do. Fair enough. The week and a half no showering in Romania does that to people (plus, the weed that grew freely in the fields did other things to us as well, mystical, revelatory, sensorial diverting things). Finding a like-minded person was invariably hard on these occasions I wanted to see as much as I could and if something interested anyone in my pod, I wanted to stop and see it. This something, could be anything and was a lot of things. From museums, to the slowest playing song in the world to essential dance sessions on the top of stacked hay towers. Some of the riders wanted to see how fast they could get to our daily final destination. In fact, we coined one of these riders “Speed Ranger” (German: Shnell Forester). He would ride ahead of his pod, directionless and we would have to wait for him to return to realize he went the wrong way. Frustration almost led to his end (actually, he almost got run over by a truck, but he didn’t, so we can find amusement from this recollection). These speed riders, like Speed Ranger, pushed themselves to never unclip from their pedals, racing through the beautiful landscape, not only NOT stopping to smell the flowers, but not stopping to smell, ANYTHING. Why? Why come allllll the way to Europe to simply ignore your surroundings? Again, to each his own, but somethings are just wrong and this is one of them. “But Irrrrraaaaaa…” But nothing! Some riders liked to nap, instead of see things. What do these nappers dream of? I hope of nothing, because they are currently living one and they are unaware of it. Dreams treated as mundane is clerical work or neighbor interactions. Again, shade is shade is shade. Who cares? I want to pick cuisines to try, not trees that are best suited to nap under. “Well an evergreen has thicker growth, thus blocking out more of the damaging UV rays…” No, do not consider such things. Please. Stop. There were moments, where the lumberjack in me (I am Canadian, you’ve all seen the Logrider’s Song and if you haven’t, you should Youtube it) wanted to chop down all trees to avoid this decision. Days off from riding became personal sanctuaries, away from the bustle of others’ opinions and blasphemes, and systemic voting of what and where and who, where I would wander off on my own and follow my own regiment, indulge in food and history, before returning to the 13 headed hydra that is group travel.

It’s my party and I will cry if I want to is my motto for travel at times and here I had no opportunity to cry unless it was agreed upon by the group. Group travel reminds me of a cruise, or an all inclusive. It hinders your experience, traps you in a social cage, inhibits you from connecting with locals and promotes lollygagging and bloodlust. It was like a scene from Office Space and I just wanted to burn it all down. At one point, my pod almost left one girl behind, because she was slow. Like slow to the point of, you actually had to really concentrate to tell whether she was in motion or not (jokes if you are reading!). At another point, a guy argued with me about directions. I had a map and he had “a feeling”. Cartographers and world explorers did not live out their lives on feelings. Feelings lead to ashrams, crying at Unicef commercials and getting ridiculously, stupidly lost. I am not saying he was suggesting we be mislead on purpose, I am stating it.

So, as you can see, I am not a fan of group travel. Maybe I’d fair better if the group was smaller…

WITH A FRIEND OR PARTNER:

THE CONTEXT: Travelled via car and train with a friend throughout Europe. Travelled with a girlfriend through Belgium, The Netherelands and China.

I threw these two categories together to show a possible ying and yang, depending on the person you travel with. In 2010, when I travelled with a friend, it worked exceedingly well because of one simple fact that is sometimes ignored. If we were in a city, town, village, wherever and we wanted to do a specific activity that the other did not want to do, we could….SEPARATE. He was very much about city walking, seeing the neighborhood. I loved doing that as well, but there were certain activities and sites that I wanted to make sure I saw. So we split apart at times, chose a meeting location and shared our daily events over a meal. I was a great way to experience travel through the eyes of others, without being force to. The opportunities are there if you’d like, but no one’s feelings were hurt if you declined. Plus, the option is one you may have not considered.

The couple situation I was in was vastly different. Not simply, because as a relationship, there is seemingly, though not always, more at stake, but also our vehicle for much of the European part of the trip was by bicycle and she had never cycled before. It became a war of personalities and of comfortableness. She was not accustomed to headwind or hills and I took such trivialities, as just that, trivialities, a challenge accepted. Fights broke out over minute details. Time was wasted squabbling. Though it wasn’t all terrible. Like any travel companion, we were able to share personal highs and lows that later we could recount. We also were able to witness things together and when we were in a specific location, she was very gung-ho to go where I had researched.

In both cases, the couple and friend travel arrangement have their pluses and minuses. In addition to the one’s mentioned, there are just some inherent reactions to its makeup that are unavoidable, both internally and from others. Internally, the two in the tango, needn’t seek anyone else out to interact with. They have each other, so why complicate it or go out of our comfort zones. This is a limitation I dislike, because as I said, part of the experience is the interactions. Externally this is the case as well. For someone looking into couchsurfing, it is always a more close relationship you build when you surf one on one, or one on host family. This is also true on the approach from locals, who see a couple as already a complete entity, not needing any external influence. In a restaurant, in a bar, out and about, I have had less people approach me and inquire about what I was doing in a couple, than when I was travelling on my own (especially on a bicycle, they attract curiousity like blue light and flies). Though, this may not be the case with everyone. For new travelers, the couple or companion style of travel may open doors that they would have never in a million years attempted to do on their own. That goes for the group travel as well, which set up easy to ingest travel trips via packed buses and all inclusive tours.

SOLO TRAVEL:

THE CONTEXT: Several times, cycling from Vancouver to Mexico, training across Eastern Europe and another cycle tour through Netherlands, Belgium and England.

For me, this is the ideal version of travel. For the obvious reasons, I can do what I want, see what I want to see and am able to build personal relations with my couchsurfers and locals. I am also able to read a book, write, sleep, fart without having to consider there is someone else with me (I never consider with the last option in that list). I was able to see this immediate contrasting form of travel in relationship to my couple travels, as I did half of a bike trip through the Netherlands as a couple and half as a solo cyclist. Right away I noticed the relief of felt cycling out of Amsterdam. Days of hellish rain were fine, as I was at my own pace, facing only my demons, with only my fears and my anger to deal with. People would approach me and ask questions, give suggestions, share a laugh, a story. I sat in coffee shops (the ones with coffee in them) and sipped aromatic euphoria, while reading or writing, embalmed in the ambience of the café scene and my own brevity. There is a self-fulfilling courage to solo travel that makes each day of it a feat accomplished. As a creative soul, the mind is free in the silence spans of alone time, to conjour without restraint or interruption. Left or right is your decision, or to not move at all. To live in your own comfort level, which for me is by the seat of my worn pants, my bearded face, my gaunt composure.

Solo travel is solo only in action. You are traveling alone, you are on your own itinerary, but by no means are you alone. As I started this article off with people, I shall end it with people. Solo travel is filled with many of them, for me, much more than any other form of travel. The cast is always in rotation, but like Saturday Night Live, the new faces bring a freshness, their own brand of intrigue to the table. There is no compromise, except your own body and mind. You can decline to see the world for days or never sleep, just to get it all in. You can spend hours playing with a worn internationally exposed bouncy ball in a UNESCO site or stand-off against galing wind off the mighty Columbia River. You can sit under shady brush when you feel tired, but not watch as others do so and you are made to wait on their slumber. Again, rather than give you the pluses and minuses of forms of travel in a general sense, I opted to give you a personalized account of each, resulting from who I am. Generalities generally don’t work, as we are not generic, nor precise to any design, as generality would too easily suggest. The best thing I can suggest, is test the waters, have a sense of what you want from travel and be prepared to possibly add or subtract people from your traveling situation. In other words, if your with people that you want to throttle and through into the nearest body of water wearing led shoes, it’s probably a good idea not to follow through with that, due to the nuisance of legalities and what not.

Part of this is finite, the rest is unrestful, unedited rambles.