We wrote an editorial a while back praising the internet miracle of couchsurfing.com, a site that proved the spirit of hospitality and the milk of human kindness weren’t a thing of the past, just out of fashion. People shared their homes with other travelers and a new way to experience a foreign culture was born.

The thing is, couchsurfing.com is also a bit crap.

With a million and a half members (and growing), it’s perhaps natural for a social network to lose the spirit of its early days. While it was once common to browse through surfers who had all hit the road for extended periods, practised yoga and loved the Fabulous Adventures of Amelie, now it’s fast becoming a kind of a social crutch, a susbtitute for real social interaction. Each city has its own group and you have only to announce a dinner party or drinks at your local cafe for any number of adrift souls to come along to join you. The conversations generally go like this:

“So where are you from?”

Oh, god we’re back to hostel smalltalk.

“Spain.”

“Oh, I was there last year!”

Yes, you and 60 million others.

“So how long have you been part of Couchsurfing?”

Long enough to know that being part of the same social network doesn’t qualify as having anything in common.

But even if Couch Surfers are thinking the above they never say it as Couch Surfing is all about the spirit of hospitality and culture exchange. A kind of Christmas spirit prevails where everyone is ostensibly interested in everyone else. All kinds of banal generalities about climate and culture are exchanged (You Danish must be used to this cold, eh? I’m Spanish so I sing Flamenco) and after a few beers you can almost convince yourself you’ve actually made some friends – rather than just met with other lonely people who happen to have an internet connection.

We live in the age of diluted values and dumbed down culture made digestible for an attention-deficient consumerist population, so perhaps it’s no surprise that friendship and hospitality should follow the same pattern. We all present our best photos on our profiles, our wisest observations on Facebook and strive to make a good impression on those we meet, if only to avoid a negative reference on our favourite social network.

Which is why at Couchsurfing meet-ups everyone is continually on display. At the parties people strive to be wild and groovy on the dance floor, while in conversation they’re cultured and open-minded. In short, it can feel like everyone is in an interview room all the time.

Couchsurfing is a cool phenomenon and a great tool for the traveler but can end up being a bit empty as a way of life. The events are often stilted and awkward but for many it beats being alone in front of a laptop.

We live in the age of the geek.

Globalisation can mean sweatshops in Asia making your running shoes, villages in China suffering industrial pollution so we can get cheap consumer goods and outsourcing of just about everything imaginable from RPG character development to the illegal organ business.

But it can also mean cheap, legal drugs for those who want to party!

Chemists in Asia now find it sufficiently profitable to manufacture drugs that are variants of THC and MDMA and which aren’t listed on governments’ illegal substances list. ‘It’s like trying to hit a moving target’, one British official complained. New laws are passed against marijuana-substitute drugs like Spice, only for a new variant to pop up weeks later and be on sale in online head shops.

Generations to come will look back on these frantic attempts to control access to mind-altering substances with the same disbelief that we feel looking back at Prohibition in the 1920’s. Not only can the War on Drugs not be won, it’s stupid. The freedom to alter one’s consciousness is an essential human right.

In fact, if anything, the trade in designer drugs shows just how much better the drugs business would be if it were legal. When people order stimulants like Charged, Cranked and Turbo on the internet, they’re unlikely to be cut with any amphetamine, heroin or nasty household chemicals as might happen when scoring some dodgy E’s from a bloke named Henry under a railway bridge.

Of course, the new chemicals themselves might have some side effects or long term health issues but then that’s the kind of thing that could be tested out if drugs were made legal. We could start with the good old-fashioned ones...

And while we might still cherish some romantic images of the mafia thanks to movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather, these are the kinds of guys who, while smuggling heroin across the Black Sea, take some prostitutes with them to sell into slavery – if the coastguard comes they throw the women overboard so that the police are forced to give up pursuit to rescue them.

It’s nothing personal, just business.

Take it away, Misha.

Almost every developing city has one; a place beyond the grasp of the law. Sometimes it is a crowded district with its own rules, other times it is a fringe area too wild to tame. Visitors are invariably told not enter these areas, but I can’t resist. Whether it’s roaming the labyrinth of concrete buildings in the favellas above Rio de Janeiro, or chasing the sound of gunfire into the lakeside slums of Phnom Phen, I always go. Hofmeyer Hill is the lawless place perched above Namibia’s capital city of Windhoek. I knew it was only a matter of time before I found myself there, terrified, excited, and, alone.

The Lonely Planet guidebook describes the walk along Hofmeyer Hill, known as Hofmeyer Walk, as a good way to get a panoramic view of the city and the mountains beyond. It also says that hikers have recently been robbed along this route, so don’t go alone and avoid carrying valuables. When I read this warning on the plane to Namibia, I knew it would not be long before I was up on the hill, enjoying the thrill of the potential chase from whomever may be lurking there.

During my first days in Windhoek, I have felt nothing but safe: too safe for my liking. I was welcomed deferentially in every seedy gambling house, and no found no sense of daring walking downtown after dark. The city center is nothing if not orderly, clean and safe. Yesterday, however, I read about a man who was stabbed for nothing more than his cell phone on Hofmeyer Hill. The article, written in the aptly named Namibian, said that there have been many such incidences in the past months. I would climb the hill to experience the fear that reminds me that I am alive.

On a chilly Tuesday morning I unpacked and put on my running clothes, tied my apartment key to the drawstring of my shorts, and headed out of my apartment. I rechecked my pockets to make sure I had nothing of value before stepping out of the apartment. At the gate to my new apartment complex I nodded to the armed guard, and wondered if I should bring him along, before jogging down Independence Avenue towards the hill.

Hofmeyer Hill is not a towering mountain. It is just a sandy, brown mass that blocks the cities progress to the east with a steep rise of two hundred meters. After a few minutes I turned east and started to climb out of the valley. The cloudless sky grew wide and pale as I rose gradually to the foot of the slope. At a mile above sea level, I couldn’t be sure if it was the altitude or my nerves that made my heart pound thunderously inside my chest and echo through my head. At a pass the paved road ended abruptly at a fork in the road, and I gladly stopped running.

A metallic blue sign stood in the fork between a wide dirt road on its left, and a small trail leading into the bush on its right. The map showed that the dirt road lead to a telecom tower at the summit, and then back down the western face of the hill. The trail, marked by a thin, red line on the map was the infamous Hofmeyer Walk, which followed below the ridgeline to the north and ended abruptly at a dead end. It seemed odd that the famous trail ended with no way off the hill and I assumed it was incorrect. I did not believe it was a dead end.

There was no one around me, and I had not seen a car or heard a noise other than my breathing since I started climbing. I wanted to be alone because I would not trust anyone else on the trail, but I did not want to be alone because I wished I had someone to watch my back in case I got jumped from behind. As I stepped onto the brown, sandy trail of Hofmeyer Walk, my first trail in Africa, the solitude bred an overwhelming fear.

I never thought I would live in Africa. It was one place I never even expected to visit. I am not a big man, so Asia is nice because I am not physically threatened. It is also nice because people are mostly non-violent because they fear the burden of Karma and the afterlife. In Latin America I can speak the language and hopefully disarm potential assailants with charm, or a bribe. But Africa, Africa always seemed too foreign and unpredictable, too wild.

In Africa there is witchcraft, tribal warfare, famine and plague. In Africa, anything can and will happen when least expected. Despite all this I still chose to move to Africa, even jumped at the chance. And despite my fears, I somehow chose to put myself alone on this hill, while my mind wondered if pieces of my white flesh, in the hands of a witchdoctor, would soon cure some tribal elder of gonorrhea.

Used condoms in the sand at my feet told me that someone had been there before me. After a few minutes of jogging the trail narrowed and became more overgrown. Tall, golden grasses shaped like Don King’s hair obscured the path at my feet while thorn-tree branches attacked my head. I startled little birds and small lizards at every turn. Then I realized I never thought of the non-human threats on this trail, such as scorpions, snakes, and lions. From then on every movement in the grass startled me, and I unrealistically imagined not only guerrillas, but worse, gorillas, waiting to ambush me.

Ducking under one thorn tree and turning along the path to my right, I saw what I had feared most. It was a group of men standing on both sides of the trail ahead of me. They were tall, over six-foot, and stood menacingly close to the trail. I slowed my pace and thought about turning around. They had not moved, and I thought I could still retrace my steps, undetected. I hid behind a boulder, and squinted to make out their silhouetted forms more clearly.

Unbeknownst to me, the other name for the Hofmeyer Walk is the Aloe Trail; because of the Aloe Littoralis plants, which grow on the hillside. Also unbeknownst to me, this particular species of aloe plant is huge, and looks remarkably like a large, broad-shouldered man topped with an unruly pile of dread locks; especially when seen at a distance by a frightened, middle-aged white man jogging on an unruly hillside in southern Africa.

I laughed out loud as I approached the gang of aloe plants and slapped their trunks to allay my fears. I started to jog again along the ascending ridgeline, but was quickly slapped with fear again. Again I was rounding a corner, and again I saw a group of murderers waiting to attack me. And again, it was a stand of harmless aloe plants. Even though my mind knew what they were, my body tensed and slowed each time I saw them. And it happened at almost every corner.

After a kilometer the trail broke over the ridge near the summit and afforded a view of the city of Windhoek. Below me were the red tiled administrative headquarters, the Lutheran steeples of German imperialism, and the spidery constructions cranes pulling up the new internationally-funded, office buildings. Ahead of me along the ridge, a row of enormous, brown reservoir tanks stood guard like sentries over the Windhoek valley. Beyond the tanks the ridge descended into the valley, and hopefully, a safe way off the hill.

The trail ran into a tall chain link fence that surrounded the bulbous water tanks. I followed a path along the fence line north until I saw something moving. It was was a shiny object swaying down the trial a few meters ahead of me. This was no aloe plant; it was a bald black guy heading moving away from me beside the fence. I instinctively stopped and crouched down while my heart raced. Who was he? What was he doing up here? Was he armed? I listened to my heart pound for a full minute before looking up again. He was gone.

I did not want to jog anymore and risk catch up to him, so I walked, keeping my head bowed. I skirted the fence and the trail began to descend. After ten minutes I noticed small trails etched into the hard, brown earth leading away from the fence towards the valley below. I decided to stay along the fence because it was the widest and most used trail. I was still scared to meet the person in front of me, or anyone else. No one, besides me, could be up here for anything but mischief, and I did not want to know where the little trails lead.

Then I began to hear street noise from the hidden valley below. Excited by the desire to be off the hill, and in the safety of civilization, I quickened my pace. I skipped over piles of loose sandstone at the base of the hill, before the trail flattened out. The ever-present piles of human shit and garbage let me know that I had reached the trailhead. Just beyond a green patch of dark green, prickly pear cactus my feet landed on a paved, city road. I did not know where I was, and I did not know how to get home, but after a car sped by me, I knew I was no longer alone. The euphoric fear began to subside, and my heart rate slowed as I stood on the side of the road, and looked for street signs. The trail, afterall, was not a dead end and I was not dead.

I was ashamed to admit that I was scared stiff by the flora on Hofmeyer Hill and even more ashamed to admit it happened repeatedly. For some reason I could not control my fear reaction to the shape of the Aloe Littoralis plants in that setting, but I survived my foolish exercise. Only days after I came down, however, another man was not so fortunate. His stalkers were not flora, and they killed him and left his body on Hofmeyer Hill.

Savannakhet is a serene city in Laos known for its classic French architecture that is slowly disappearing. Each day, young men congregate along the road that borders the Mekong River. Smoke rises from street vendor’s hot skillets. They sell skewered meat, fish, and eggs which people take to benches by the river and eat in the midday sun. Motorcyclists gather to laugh and chat as they survey the streets waiting for people docking from the boats, looking for rides into the city centre. A little further up the road is a private club for elderly men to play boules.

Along the riverfront, the old buildings that the city is famous for are still standing. Unfortunately, the charm that the riverfront is noted for having seemed to be missing on the day I arrived.

I went down to the riverfront in search of the charm the old architecture brings and the vibrant chatter of the locals but something was wrong. A large crowd had gathered by the foreshore 50 metres ahead of me. Everybody’s attention was on seven men swimming in the river. They were shouting instructions in Lao, passing orange life jackets along a rope at a frantic pace.

I summoned up the nerve to ask a waitress in case she knew what was going on. Without wanting to draw too much attention to myself, I called her over, requested a bottle of water and asked in a low voice:

Through a series of broken English phrases and hesitant hand gestures, she put the pieces together so that I could work out the scenario.

“Two children jump in water for swim, people look for them,” she began, while pointing to the group of men swimming in the river simultaneously.

As I looked into the distance, I could see that a strong current was hampering their rescue efforts. But there seemed no urgency in their voices when conducting the mission, suggesting that the children may have already died, and that the rescuers were going through the motions until police would arrive on the scene.

“Where are the children now?” I asked.

A few moments of silence passed before the young lady bowed her head and said, “You have water now. One thousand (Lao) kip, please,” as if wanting to shoo me away.

I asked if anybody had called the authorities. Maybe the authorities could supply a high-powered speedboat that could cover greater terrain.

“Yes, they are over there,” she answered, and singled out some plainclothes officers to my left. One of them had a beer in his hand. I assumed this must have been his day off.

So who are the men in the water?” I asked again.

“They are farmers and fisher (men),” she said.

This was the part-time rescue team summoned with the responsibility of trying to locate the missing children. There were no professional lifeguards or trained medical teams were on standby. Two local fishing boats paddled along the water, hopeful for any signs, but they happened to be there by coincidence. All the volunteers could give was their heart and very best undertaking to locate two dead children in dangerous conditions. If the kids were not swept out to sea at lightning speed, then they certainly would have hit themselves on jagged rocks lying beneath the surface.

“How long have they (the children) been in the water?”

“They go inside water at 12 o’clock,” the lady answered back. I looked at my watch. The time was now 12:45pm, and the children’s chances of survival were diminishing.

Quickly surveying the crowd, I noticed that more by-passers had stopped. Perhaps they were curious or wanted to pay their respects. My first instinct was to leave because I did not fancy being in the vicinity of any grief-stricken parents.

“If the police and swimmers cannot find the children, then who will help the parents?” I asked.

The young lady said “Monks pray.”

I thanked her for the help shave had given me, passed on a brief smile, acknowledging the grim circumstances and set about the task of finding my way out amongst the crowd as quickly as possible. All I wanted to do was head back into the town centre.

Suddenly, a prolonged series of screeching wails came from a woman standing right behind me. As I turned around, she collapsed to her knees and started crying and yelling in Lao language right in front of me. It was the mother of the two missing children. I really wanted to leave and get back to the centre of town but something was holding me back from leaving.

Suddenly I felt a tug at my left trouser pants. The mother of two children whose official statuses were the subject of a current rescue effort, had fallen to her knees and latched onto the end of my pants. She was overwhelmed by the circumstances, and had commenced wailing in Lao in a high-pitched tone which bordered on screeching. Tears were streaming down her face.

Although I couldn’t guess her age, her back seemed slightly bent due to years of manual labour and she looked older than her age. Her two most important treasures had just been snatched from her and no amount of reassurance could soothe her. So I just stood there, hoping that somebody, preferably a monk, would come and save the day.

Within a few minutes, two monks who had walked from the pagoda convinced the woman to hold some incense sticks. At first she lacked the will to grip onto them. Her body was completely numb and she fell to the pavement. As the monks gently coaxed her to follow them, she resisted further, continuing to let out painful cries. It took two extra people in the crowd to help her, by which time she was still crying hysterically whilst being carried away.

By contrast, her husband stayed 15 metres behind her, sobbing quietly. He cut a forlorn figure, and his silence was almost as moving as his wife’s hysterics.

As I looked in his direction for a few seconds, his eyes caught mine. Initially I interpreted his message as saying, Why must we suffer like this? But his glance may have also contained a second meaning, as in What are you doing here? At that point, I wished the cracks beneath me would open, swallow me up and then spit out my bones and conscience.

What saved me from drowning in my own guilt was a group of some school children riding past on their bicycles who caught th father’s attention. They were heading in the direction where the crowd had originally gathered. Every child was dressed in their school uniform: a neat, white shirt and navy blue pants. They were all curious as to the commotion taking place, oblivious to the circumstances.

Perhaps the distraught father was hoping that his children were actually amongst the group of children on their bikes, and would miraculously ride over to greet him, ending the nightmare in existence. But no such scenario occurred.

Within two minutes, one of the swimmers had climbed out of the river and used hand gestures, signaling for the rest of his colleagues to walk or swim further up the river. Shaking his head, it seemed the rescuers had conceded defeat. There would be no hope of finding the children alive, so the best they could do was to move further down the river where maybe they could use their fishing nets to find the children’s bodies.

As the lifesavers wandered off into the distance, the stunned crowd dispersed and attempted to return to a semblance of normality. Some individuals headed towards the pagoda to join the chanting and prayer ceremonies. Slowly the vendors went back to their street-side skillets, motorcyclists returned to their machines and the bocce game resumed. But parents who remained near the river seemed to be holding their children a little tighter, gripped by a steely resolve that a similar tragedy would not strike their family.

I just finished Foreign Babes in Beijing, the hilarious, insightful tragic-comic tale of an American girl who winds up acting in a Chinese TV series about love between East and West. Rachel DeWoskin arrives in China looking for adventure but finds herself working for a PR firm and gets caught in the cultural crossfire of a Western corporate environment in Beijing. So when she’s offered the chance to become an actress she jumps at the chance, however cheesy the role might be.

‘I was playing Jiexi, the manipulative American hussy who seduces a married Chinese man, falls in love with him, and then sacrifices everything for true love when she agrees to marry him.‘

DeWoskin is in China only a few years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, (like 9/11, known to the Chinese by the date, 6/4) but the tide of Westernisation can’t be stopped as the personal takes precedence over the public good and individualist consumerism takes hold of the country like a fever. Young Chinese get their hair dyed blond, their eyelids lifted and traditional values get shaken to the core by the cultural seismic shifts.

And DeWoskin is a great companion when it comes to understanding some of these changes. When the Chinese begin to suffer some of the effects of Westernisation, such as a rise in obesity, the China Daily claimed it was because China had ‘long emphasised morality and education, while neglecting health‘. DeWoskin comments ‘It’s a lovely spin that Chinese were becoming too obese because they were too busy with their morality and their studies to exercise‘.

DeWoskin, or her character, Jiexi – one in the eyes of the Chinese – comes to represent everything Western and her every word or action is scrutinized for the selfish motives that drive all Americans. But the TV producers are intent on DeWoskin portraying the character and values of a ‘true foreigner’ and so she’s required to consistently overact and fulfill Chinese cultural stereotypes ow wanton, selfish Americans. When she meets her true love, for instance, it takes many cuts before the producers settle for a lusty thumbs up that she gives the camera.

Dewoskin teaches us the Chinese proverb that ‘as a pig fears getting big, so a person fears getting famous‘ and soon begins to suffer the effects of success.

‘Watching myself, I saw a puppet, my own double. The thumbs up became a symbol for Foreign Babes and, for years, policemen and strangers gave me double thumbs up on the streets.‘

With an audience of 600 million people watching Foreign Babes in Beijing, DeWoskin becomes a celebrity, an ambassador for the West, while all the time she ‘foolishly hoped there was no obvious connection between me and the Muppet I played on TV.‘

But it’s the buffoonery and absurdity of DeWoskin’s position that makes Foreign Babes in Beijing such a great read. The tale is funny, embarrassing and bewildering at times but DeWoskin is a shrewd observer with a good feel for contemporary China and the TV antics make a brilliant foil to the deeper observations about China and expatriate life there.

A more entertaining travel memoir you won’t find.

When a traveler gets in trouble with the cops in Thailand and needs to know the best way out, leave it to road junkies to lend a helping hand.

Escaping countries when you’ve overstayed your visa is the kind of thing the upcoming Road Junky Wire will be designed to do…

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Help! Stuck in Thailand
10-24-2009, 07:06 PM Post: #1
tanukihimself
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Help! Stuck in Thailand
I am on the run from the corrupt thai police. Long story with no moral. What is the best way to flee the country with an emergency passport and no visa stamps.
I am a citizen of the U.S.A. if that makes any difference one way or the other.
thanks.

10-25-2009, 02:31 AM Post: #2
tom
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RE: Help! Stuck in Thailand
When you cross into Laos then there’s no computer system (at least there wasn’t 2 years ago when i was there) so if you can get the right stamp on your emergency passport that might be an option.

But i don’t know if you’re allowed to travel on an emergency passport anywhere except back ‘home’…

I’ve heard that in cases like this, a good friend or family member with a similar resemblance flies in and lets you use their passport to leave. Once you’re out they report their passport stolen.

10-25-2009, 05:07 AM Post: #3 ohio
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RE: Help! Stuck in Thailand
go to the southern cambodian border (near trat). you might even be able to just sneek over the border without getting bothered by the thais (just walk across confidently). you may have to bribe the cambodians when they see that you don’t have your thai exit stamp.. $100 should do it just fine. Better yet, don’t even talk with the cambodians on the other side, either, just get a taxi immediately and head for phnom penh. If you’re confident and swift no one will say anything, I’m sure of that. If they ask, say you already have all the required documents and brush them off. Get to phnom penh and you will have no problem bribing immigration there if necessary. There are jobs teaching english everywhere and you can make a living for quite awhile if necessary or you can just go to the US embassy there. I’m familiar with nearly all of thailand’s borders, and that is certainly the most fluid and open. Cambodian officials will be much easier to bribe than laotian officials. In fact, you won’t be able to bribe laotian officials… Everything depends on your confidence. As a foreigner, you are unlikely to be seriously questioned if you are confident and swift. best of luck

10-25-2009, 05:27 PM Post: #4
tanukihimself
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RE: Help! Stuck in Thailand
Yeah. I’m already in trat. I thought I would have to pay a boat to ferry me over.

10-26-2009, 02:42 AM Post: #5 ohio
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RE: Help! Stuck in Thailand
yeah, you could take a boat if you can find one, just bne fucking careful that they don’t rob you. it could be easily done… I mean, robbing you. The had lek border crossing is just a checkpoint on the road. Walk across and don’t let anyone stop you. That’s it. There’s no bridge. As soon as you cross into cambodia call for a taxi, you should be fine. i honestly think that’s simpler and porbably safer than taking a boat, but it’s your call obviously.

Yesterday, 08:24 PM Post: #6
tanukihimself
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RE: Help! Stuck in Thailand
Made it through. I had to bribe my way past the cambodians still no visa. I assume that the embassy might help with that.

Today, 07:42 AM Post: #7 ohio
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RE: Help! Stuck in Thailand
haha, nice. I won’t ask what the hell you did. You’ll be fine in cambodia. You’re surely not the worst scoundrel hanging out there… You might just ask around at the lakeside in PP and see who can help you out before going to the embassy. I forget the name of the guesthouse… I’d reckon the last guesthouse to the south, they can help you. (It’s also the best guesthouse on the lake). Either way, you’ll need a new passport.

I was walking down High Street in Columbus, Ohio with my friend Jeff, a tall, lanky young man with pale skin, a light, scraggly beard and three year’s growth of long, tangled dreadlocks. I was railing against the American police state as we went, when we passed a dense line gathered outside of the Newport Concert Hall. The sidewalk was blocked, and with no traffic in the immediate vicinity I stepped 6 inches into the street and walked around the crowd before returning to the sidewalk.

A moment later, a police cruiser pulled up beside me and the passenger side window rolled down.

“Hey! Come over here!” I heard a voice from inside the cruiser.

“Yeah?” I asked, looking into the vehicle and seeing a young cop with blonde hair, cold grey eyes and an arrogant smirk across his face. “You need to talk to me, man?”

“Yeah, I need to talk to you,” he said, spitting out the final word with surprising contempt. “What were you doing walking in the middle of the road?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, almost thinking that he was joking. I looked back at the broad line outside of the concert hall and pointed in that direction.

“Uhh, there’s a long line over there,” I remarked. “I had to go around it.”

“Look, there’s a half ton vehicle coming right at you and you just step right out in front of it. Why did you do that? You could get hit or cause someone to wreck cause’ you’re walkin’ in the street… huh?! Why did you do that?!”

I suddenly realized that he wasn’t joking at all, and eyed him a bit more closely, noting his short posture and squirrel-like disposition. He didn’t seem to be under the influence of any drugs, at least none other than a notion of power and invulnerability to the law.

I looked back at the concert hall and almost laughed at the ridiculousness of his accusation.

“Huh?’ he continued somewhat incoherently. “Why did you do that…? Now apologize. Excuse yourself for walking in front of me.”

I shook my head in disbelief and looked back at the crowd one more time, now with an uneasy grin. Deep anger swelled up in my chest and I felt like just ignoring him and walking away, but he continued berating me.

“Excuse yourself,” he went on with a contemptuous smirk. “Say you’re sorry.”

I leered back at him, but remained silent. I contemplated my recent encounters with Columbus police, including an outrageously expensive open-container charge a few weeks before, and wondered if my basic civil liberties were more important than my economic and legal well-being.

As I stood on the sidewalk glaring into his jaunty, despicable eyes, a large police truck pulled up beside the squad car, and I watched nervously as they conversed for a moment. Now three of “Columbus’ finest” were blocking all northward traffic on High Street, the main north-south route through the city, and I wondered how far the situation would escalate. Finally, after their cross-car conference, they all turned their eyes to me, and the original “peace officer” spoke up again.

“Excuse yourself,” he repeated for the last time. “Then you can go.”

“Excuse me… I’m sorry,” I said with a disgust that I had never felt for four words spoken together in my life.

He nodded and both cars drove away, and I turned bitterly to Jeff.

“They’re such fucking assholes,” Jeff said, his jaw slackened in surprise at what he had just witnessed.

“Yeah, man,” I said, feeling suddenly sick to my stomach. “Fucking pigs.”

As we walked further down the road, frequently jay-walking, I contemplated what America had become. No where else I had been in the world had I been threatened, harassed or insulted by those in “authority” the way I had in the United States. However, as we continued, I found some peace within the bitterness that churned in my belly. Arrogance is the sin most effectively punished by karma, and I had no doubt that anyone who behaved in such a way would be held accountable in one respect or another, even if it’s just having to look in the mirror every day and realize his own worthlessness.

Later that night, as I lie in the back of my van, I contemplated the absurdity of the society around me. In a city with one of the highest murder rates in the country, where rapes, muggings, break-ins, and all sorts of violent crime are ever more commonplace and there is a growing movement of tent-cities of the poor and displaced, the government spends immense resources to equip, train, and pay an incredibly corrupt and delinquent police force that spreads more fear and hate than justice.

Leaving Columbus was once again the best experience I could muster in that forlorn dumpster of a city.

[_Editor: whereas America is one of the worst places to go to jail, it ought to be mentioned that American cops are angels compared to the police in places like India or the Ukraine]

The poor old French. Once the dominant world culture with their own empire and the aristocrats of Russia taking French lessons to sound sophisticated at their salon parties, now their colonies are gone and they’re just another star on the European flag.

But holding out against the forces of cultural assimilation is the plucky comic figure, Asterix, who just turned 50. Just as the indomitable Gauls continue to resist the Roman occupation in the pages of the comic, Asterix has come to represent the spirit of French cultural pride and the “cultural exception:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_exception. The books have sold some 330 million copies worldwide, the films) have been a hit, there’s an Asterix theme park outside Paris and LSD blotters with the druid Getafix – inventor of the magic potion – burned many of our brain cells back in the golden days of Goa Trance.

Such a cultural bastion has Asterix been that there is even talk of the Asterix Syndrome which can either refer to French pride in their cultural legacy or their stubborn resistance to resist the inevitable effects of globalisation.

But for the rest of us Asterix will always be a favourite simply for the way the comics lampooned just about every race in the known world, from the precise fastidiousness of the Swiss to the quirky nerdiness of the British.

The plots may have sucked since writer, Rene Goscinny died (and we assume he must be rolling in his grave now that Asterix even advertises McDonald’s but Asterix and Obelix still represent the little man against the occupying forces of the Empire and comics are some of the best travel tales out there.

It can’t be denied that Gregory David Roberts has had a colourful life. Having escaped from jail in Australia he spent years living in Bombay as a smuggler and experienced some pretty harrowing times in an Indian jail. He fictionalised his life story to write the thriller, Shantaram), and now you can’t walk into a traveler ghetto in India without seeing someone feverishly reading a copy and dreaming of the wild life of a drug smuggler.

Having put all that safely behind him, Roberts has reincarnated himself as a feel good motivational speaker, using his vivid travel anecdotes as a foil to his message of love and good will to all humanity. He comes across as a bit born-again at times but the stories are well worth a listen.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5